Easter Egg Hunt
MacworldBy Marie D'Amico
It began with Atari video games in the early '80s. An Easter egg is a hidden sound or picture placed in code by a programmer with a wacky sense of humor on too much Jolt. Here are some of the crËme de la egg crËmes for Newton 2.0.
1. The X-Files: All those crack-brained JFK conspiracy theorists seem sane compared to Area 51 aficionados. Area 51 , a.k.a. Groom Lake, lies about 90 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada, and is an installation where secret spy planes, like the U-2 and the Stealth, are tested. Some say the aliens and their spacecraft who landed in Roswell, New Mexico are housed there. When Newton programmers placed an Area 51 Easter egg in 2.0, a CIA encryption-developer objected and engineers patched it out of the ROM.
Although Apple disavows any knowledge, you can find it by following these steps: Tap Extras, Tap Unfiled Icons folder tab, Choose Storage, Tap Time Zones, Tap Delete, Tap OK, Tap Storage folder tab, Choose Unfiled Icons, Tap Time Zones, Tap on map near Nevada, and Area 51 , NV will appear in the list of cities. ET and UFO icons appear in the Calendar but only for those who think Dana Scully , the female FBI operative’s name on The X-Files , is a bit too similar to John Sculley, onetime promoter of Newton . The truth is out there.
2. A Geography Lesson: Other fun cities in the world map (tap Extras, tap Time Zones) include Titanic, Newtonmore, and Newton, Iowa, the home of Maytag. The wackiest bug report filed: one tester noted the area code for the city "Titanic" was missing. American school children definitely need better geography lessons.
3. Cuckoo Names: Tap Dates, Tap i, Tap Prefs, Tap in any corner without the X.
4. Knock Three Times: Write any of the following three times and you'll get a surprise: larryy, Brandyn, lesv, stafford, lyon.
5. Shade Your Eyes: From the niche magazine, Sky & Telescope, a Newton engineer programmed the next 10 years of solar eclipses in 2.0. On the day of an eclipse, when you power up, instead of the light bulb, you'll see an eclipse you can view without sunglasses.
6. Egg Freckles: In late 93, if you wrote the words "ridicule," and " Doonesbury ," you could crank out a review of Newton 1.0. Being married to Steve Capps , the Newtonian Apple Fellow, reporters asked me, "how does your husband feel about being ridiculed by Doonesbury ?" about a gazillion times. To show what sports we are, I found Trudeau 's agent and requested an autographed print of the complete strip for Capps' birthday. After many months of phone calls and letters, Trudeau sent me not only the signed strip but also an explanation of its creation. "I know a lot of people took my Newton strips to be a full-blown consumer review pan, but I was just writing about guys and their toys." He added, "The only thing I don't own is a Newton. I've never even laid eyes on one."
Steve and I decided a Doonesbury Easter egg would be the best revenge. In secrecy, I sent Trudeau some letters requesting an Easter egg and describing how much it would mean to a frazzled Newtonite. He drew a special Easter egg for 2.0. Trudeau 's new Doonesbury book has a screen shot of the egg placed in the margin on page 299. You can find the egg in 2.0 by writing "egg freckles" and tapping the Assist button. Enjoy.
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© 2006 Macworld
