Easter egg
Software easter eggs are secret screens, videos, graphics, or other type of message that has been buried in an application. Typically, easter eggs are used to display the credits for the development team or to display a humorous message. Easter eggs are intended to be fun and can be found in any type of software ? including games, word processing applications, and even operating systems. To see an easter egg, you often will need know a special procedure or sequence of keystrokes.
For example, follow these instructions to see a list of people who worked on the User Assistance feature of Microsoft Word 2000:
1. Open Microsoft Word2000
2. Press F1 or click the “Office Assistant” button
3. Under the “What would you like to do?”, type “Cast” (No quotes)
4. Click SEARCH
5. Click the MICROSOFT OFFICE 2000 USER ASSISTANCE STAFF topic
6. Click the graphic in the Microsoft Word Help screen
Easter eggs in computer games are quite common and may be funny scenes, hidden levels, or other extras gamers can discover while playing. One of the most popular easter eggs to unlock in video games is the “Dopefish”. This fun, fictional fish first appeared in Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle (1991). Since that time it has made an appearance as an easter egg in numerous games. In many games you need to unlock a special level or perform a sequence of actions to find the hidden easter egg.
Easter eggs may also be found in movies, music albums, videos and other types of media.
