The Hindu Business Line : Eggciting!

There was a time when geeks spent hours and hours fooling around with the computer keyboard, trying to crack an Easter egg. For those of you who still associate blue screens with prurience, an Easter egg is, quite simply, a message or a command concealed by developers in operating systems and software applications which get triggered only if you undertake a particular sequence of actions.

By way of illustration: If you happen to have Word 2 on your machine, try this out. Choose the Macro command from the Tools menu. Type the macro name "Spiff'' and choose the Edit button. You'll get a display showing a new macro window with the default instructions "Sub MAIN'' and "End Sub.'' Select the contents of the window, including the blank line between the two instructions, and delete them. Choose Close from the File menu. When you're asked whether you want changes to the macro, choose Yes. Choose About from the Help menu and click the Word icon in the dialogue box. You'll see a series of animated figures fighting a huge green monster with the help of the Word icon!

You've just cracked an Easter egg.

However, tempus fugits (pig latin for time flies) and the latest game in town is locating Easter eggs on DVDs. But, before we get to the Easter eggs on DVDs, let's see how these fun things came about.

Actually, Easter eggs have been cropping up in computer hardware and software for a couple of decades now. Nobody quite remembers when the first Easter egg was spotted — but people talk about 1977 when many cartridges for the Atari 2600 game system were found to contain Easter eggs. The early Apple Macintoshes and Commodore Amigas were also known to have eggs hidden in their software system. In any case, it's safe to say that, since the late 1970s, just about every operating system and software programme featured at least one egg.

Many companies didn't like the idea of their coders spending their time and money on concealing Easter eggs. Microsoft, for instance, tended to get a bit sniffy when the subject came up and its head, Bill Gates, was quoted by the New York Times as saying: "We don't mind including credit screens in a product, as long as they don't burn up too much development time or require many resources of the consumer's machine. A lot of work and pride go into creating a software product and it's understandable that the people involved enjoy getting credit. Unfortunately, the credit list can never be comprehensive because so many people contribute.''

That was as far as OS and apps were concerned. But Easter eggs on DVDs are different. According to Amy Jo Doner, Executive Director of the DVD Entertainment Group, "studios are now publicly acknowledging them and, in some cases, actively putting Easter eggs in.''

"I'm not sure that you can say that they've enhanced sales, but they're clearly very popular."

However, Geoffrey Kleinman, founder of DVDTalk.com, a forum for DVD freaks, believes that Easter eggs are more about building a buzz online: "Someone will generally start a thread by talking about an Easter egg they found in a movie and that will launch a whole discussion about the movie....''

Whatever.

Here are some tips on how to crack the Easter eggs on DVDs containing two films selected entirely at random.

To begin with, let's take a look at The Terminator: Special Edition. It contains a whole bunch of hidden interviews with the cast/crew members who worked on the film. This is how you get to see them: Insert the side of the DVD that contains the movie and, from the main menu, go to Special Features. Highlight the Resume Film menu entry and press Down on your remote control to highlight a small block at the top of the screen. Press Enter and bingo! you'll get to see one of the four interviews with the cast/crew members. Repeat the procedure to see all the interviews.

And then there's Hannibal: Special Edition. Go to disk two and select the Breaking the Silence feature. A new screen will appear. Arrow down to the Music option and press the left arrow key. Two arrows pointing up will be highlighted. Press Enter. You'll get to see the flashpoints — that's film talk for the two or three seconds of footage that goes on to the camera after the director says "cut.''

Got it? Have fun......

pratap@thehindu.co.in

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