IN today's world of software viruses, computer bugs and "cookie" files which Web sites attach to your hard disk, it's a pleasant surprise when the hidden extras on your PC turn out to be fun and even beneficial.
Yes, we're talking about "Easter eggs" - not the chocolate variety but the little tricks or credits which programming teams tuck away into their projects. With a few unusual key combinations, for example, they might show a list of credits for the team, or a small game might pop up.
They range from the bland to the brilliant. Just as screensavers have developed from being a utility item into a new art form, Easter eggs have reached elaborate heights in some cases. On balance, Macintosh eggs tend to be more colourful and imaginative than IBM compatible ones just like their owners, Mac users would say.
What is accepted as the first egg was in the game Adventure on the Atari 2600, where the programmer spelt out his name on the walls of one room, "taking up a huge chunk of the available ROM" according to one player.
So, with the season that's in it, here are some Easter eggs you might try out on your machine during the holidays. The lists are dedicated to the programmers who created them - and the poor souls who spend days and days trying every combination in the book to find them.
Macintosh Easter eggs
. Type secret about box in Stickies or SimpleText (or any other program that has drag and drop capabilities). Then drag the text to the desktop. Voila: a secret game of Breakout (quite slow - and silent too). Works on System 7.5. On a Power Mac 99500 and 7500 (or any computer with System 7.5.2) you get a pic of the Apple HQ - now try moving the mouse around.
. In Stickies, create a new note and type Antler! and press return; you'll see a picture and two names...
. Hold down the shift key then open the Map control panel. It's magnified. Type mid and you get the middle of nowhere.
. In the Memory control panel, turn virtual memory on and hold down option while selecting the hard drive - for loads of great credits.
. In the Sound control panel on Performas and earlier models, hold down option and select "sound in". You get a rather strange new sound.
. In System 7.5 in the Find File box there is a pop up that lets you decide what to search by (the default is Name). The "secret" but very handy tip is that if you hold down the option key when you press on the pop up, you get a few extra options. One of them is content!
Searching your entire hard disk by content can be very slow but can also be very useful - the next best thing to the shareware - program Ultrafind.
. Hold down option, choose "About this Macintosh" then select "About this Finder". You get the picture of the original Mac OS.
. Earlier versions of Quark XPress are supposed to have a legendary egg, but it has never worked for us. Select an item you want to delete, hold the following horrible combination of keys down at the same time: optioncontrol-shift-k. An alien pops up and deletes the item with his gun.
PC Easter eggs
. In Windows 95, right-click on the desktop and create a new folder. Name it "and now the moment you've all been waiting for" (omitting the quotes) and tap Enter. Right-click the new folder and rename it "we proudly present for your viewing pleasure". (Enter.) Right-click it again and rename it "The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team!" (Enter.) Finally, double click the folder to see the egg.
. In Word for Windows 6.0, start a new document and type "t3!" (no quotes). Then bold the word and from the Format menu choose Autoformat. Click OK and Accept. Click on About Microsoft Word and click on the Word symbol in the top left. Wait for the end of the credits for a message from the programmers.
. Word 7.0 for Windows 95 has a very tame egg accessed by selecting Help, About and holding Ctrl+Shift+Alt keys while clicking on the horizontal divider in the About Box. A floating "splash screen" appears and stays on top after the About box is closed.
. A small bouncing dot appears above the "i" in the program name in mIRC if you choose Help, About and right-click in the help box.
. In Comptons Interactive Encyclopedia 1996, at the top of any list box, select the third item with a single click. Type ZZZ.
. To cheat at Microsoft Minesweeper, hold Shift and Enter and type XYZZY. Release Shift and press again. After this, when the cursor is over a mine the top left corner of your screen shows a black pixel.
. In Quattro Pro for Windows, type some text into a cell and select Date, Parse. Click on Create, then Edit, then hold Shift and tap the question mark key - three times.
. Click Help and About in Paradox for Windows, then press Shift-Alt.
. One of the brightest PC eggs is in the worthy but hardly exciting Microsoft Excel 7.0. Create a new spreadsheet and go to the 95th row. Highlight the entire row by clicking to the left of Column A. Hit Tab to get to Column B, then go to Help about Excel. Hold down Shift and Ctrl and click on Tech Support. This brings up a 3D window with a Doorn type scene. Turn away from the stairs and type EXCELKFA to walk through a wall into a room with pictures of the developers.
. In CorelDRAW 6.0, click Help and About. Double click one of the icons to bring up a balloon with the credits. Right click for extra effects.
. In any of the Norton Utilities for Windows 95 go to the About box and press N, U and 9 simultaneously for a picture of the development team.
Netscape eggs
. In Mac's Netscape 2. 0+, you can view the source of any url (even of gif images!) using the syntax view source: URL
. For one of the best Easter eggs in Netscape 2.1, type about:hype - this plays the sound (in sun au format) of an unidentified male saying "what is global hypermedia?" Bizarre.
. typing about:cache in the location window (or about:imagecache or about:global) gives cache and global history details, which can turn out to be very useful.
. ctrl-option-F takes you to Netscape's fishcam.
. ctrl-option-W used to take you to the White House web site - mysteriously it has been removed from other platforms.
. you can get to Netscape's site by clicking on the logo animation.
. pressing the space bar is the same as pressing page down.
. Netscape Navigator on the PC
has several hidden features too, including Ctrl-Alt-F to jump to the fishcam site, Ctrl-Alt-S to hide the status bar and a -k command line switch when starting Navigator to go into "kiosk mode" - with no way to access any URLs except those linked from the first page.