
I found an easter egg from 1977 - rkuykendall-com
https://selectbutton.net/t/i-found-an-easter-egg-from-1977/8828
======
molticrystal
While I am not implying these were used as such, another purpose these
complicated sequences can hold is as a code trap for clone detection.

Code Traps:

[https://arcadeblogger.com/2019/06/29/atari-centipedes-
hidden...](https://arcadeblogger.com/2019/06/29/atari-centipedes-hidden-code-
trap/)

And the discussion here a month ago about code traps:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20312256](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20312256)

Along similar lines in both the digital and non-digital world people would
include false landmarks and roads on maps to detect copying, since while facts
are not protected, fake places are
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street)

~~~
tedivm
When I was at Malwarebytes we would seed our engine with "malware" that was
just programs we created on an airgapped machine so we could see when other
companies were just blatantly copying us.

We actually discovered that one Chinese company was-
[https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/29681-iobit-steals-
mal...](https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/29681-iobit-steals-malwarebytes-
intellectual-property/)

~~~
zerr
Interesting, how did Malwarebytes started (the business), how did they
aqcuaire the database initially?

~~~
tedivm
It was originally started on a web forum by a few people making it as a hobby,
but it got popular quickly. The database was all built in house.

------
neetfreek
The source write-up for those looking to bypass Twitter:
[https://selectbutton.net/t/i-found-an-easter-egg-
from-1977/8...](https://selectbutton.net/t/i-found-an-easter-egg-
from-1977/8828)

------
DoreenMichele
Wow. Montgomery Ward -- source of the ad dating the game -- doesn't even exist
anymore:

 _Montgomery Ward Inc. is the name of two historically distinct American
retail enterprises. It can refer either to the defunct mail order and
department store retailer, which operated between 1872 and 2001, or to the
current catalog and online retailer also known as Wards._

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Ward](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Ward)

I was thinking "Does _Montgomery Ward_ even exist anymore? I can't recall the
last time I saw one." I searched and, to my surprise, the Wards.com website
came up.

Then I checked Wikipedia. Nope, it is not the website for the now defunct
department store chain. It's a different entity.

------
mattbee
Way back Atari didn't used to give credit to individual programmers - these
easter eggs were a pretty common response:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethporges/2017/12/20/the-
true-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethporges/2017/12/20/the-true-story-
behind-the-original-video-game-easter-egg-that-inspired-ready-player-
one/#7332b6342976)

etc.

------
chewxy
Ready Player One would be quite different if the main character has to type a
sequence of 48 characters before falling into the ice

------
rkuykendall-com
Source tweet:
[https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/1157400935053844480](https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/1157400935053844480)

------
Aardwolf
In a sense adding the code to handle inputting the numbers wasn't even
necessary, this easter egg is already readable by looking at the ROM dump
itself, so already does its job that way

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Particularly when you consider that without the rom dump, it would be
impossible to discover this code.

Why make the code so absurdly long? Even by the most conservative and/or
optimistic estimate, that code is _well_ beyond what could be randomly
guessed.

~~~
jkaplowitz
Maybe so that Mr. Glass could prove to someone non-technical that he wrote it
by providing the passcode directly, whether to friends or family for "cool
points" or in a legal dispute over authorship/credit/royalty rights.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Thanks. Now that you mention it, I think your scenario is 100% right! The code
was long exactly because no one was ever supposed to find it, it was supposed
to be for the author to use.

------
Someone
_”In the case of Spitfire, pressing “1” starts a 2-player game and pressing
“2” starts a 1-player game against the CPU”_

Not the best of choices, I would say. Alternatively, what do I miss here?

------
rgovostes
The infamous “Adventure” Easter egg, widely referred to as the first one, is
from 1979. This predates it by around two years.

~~~
LocalH
It's been known for quite a while that Adventure's egg wasn't the first
(although Warshaw _did_ get a lot of acknowledgement and visibility when his
was believed to be the first, so it was good that we thought his was the first
for a while). I think this is the third one found on the Channel F, all of
which predate Adventure. Plus, somewhere in the middle, there was an arcade
game named Starship 1 that also had an egg.

~~~
trav4225
HSWWSH!

------
kgwxd
mkglass on Reddit suspects it may be his father that did this. He made games
for Atari and other companies. Unfortunatley he passed in 2005.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/clom9n/someone...](https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/clom9n/someone_found_an_easter_egg_from_1977_might_be/)

------
milkmiruku
[https://i.imgur.com/5t6k1uj.png](https://i.imgur.com/5t6k1uj.png)

------
amelius
The passcode contains almost as many bits as the message it displays ...

------
kgwxd
This post seems recent, Im pretty sure this has been known for years.

Edit: I was wrong, I was thinking of the Starship 1 easter egg mentioned in
the Q&A. I knew easter eggs earlier than Adventure had been discovered.

~~~
jkaplowitz
Well, HN allows interesting reposts that haven't shown up in the last year or
so. It was new and interesting to me, at least.

------
kreetx
And I thought you found an actual Easter egg, i.e a painted egg. We have a
couple from the 80s.

