Uncovering a 27-year-old concealed Easter egg hidden within the ROM of the Apple Power Mac G3; a RAM disk named 'secret ROM image' reveals a covert file.
Digging deep into the guts of beige Apple Power Mac G3 computers, a hidden gem of a long-lost Easter egg has been unearthed. On Tuesday, self-proclaimed tech geek Doug Brown shared his findings in a blog post, detailing how he stumbled upon the 'secret dev team' Easter egg after taking a leisurely Sunday dive into the inner workings of these ancient machines. Though the Easter egg was already known to exist from previous ROM hacking sessions, no one knew how an average Mac user could stumble upon it, leafing through their system like a treasure hunt.
Wielding some technical knowledge and the help of friends, Brown embarked on a quest to track down this elusive Easter egg and shed light on the process for ordinary users. Turns out, enabling this hidden gem is a piece of cake, if you know the tricks.
Intrigued by the challenge, Alex, a fellow InfoSec Exchange user, jumped in and managed to trigger the Easter egg using these simple steps:
- Fiddle with the Memory control panel.
- Create a RAM disk.
- Restart your Mac to mount the RAM disk.
- Head to Special > Erase Disk. When prompted, name the volume secret ROM image.
- Click Erase to format the disk, and presto! The “The Team” file will materialize in the root of the RAM disk.
- Give that file a double-click, and watch your Mac's simple text editor render the hidden image of the development team that worked tirelessly on those ancient beige Power Macs.
This Easter egg can also be experienced with minimal hassle through the magical world of emulation, using the Infinite Macintosh online emulator. Just create a RAM disk, follow the steps above, and you'll be greeted by the familiar faces of the development team in no time.
It's worth noting that, around the same time, Steve Jobs imposed a ban on Easter eggs once he returned to Apple in '97, kicking off the era of iDevices. Microsoft followed suit in '02 as part of its Trustworthy Computing Initiative. In contrast, the Easter egg fun is still very much alive in modern systems – simply type edge://surf into Microsoft Edge's address bar to summon the Surfing game, reminiscent of the good old days.
For those eager to discover more Easter eggs hidden in Microsoft's past, look no further than the vaults of Wikipedia. While many of these gems were tucked away in older software, they're still worth a peek.
Stay curious, and keep your tech eyes peeled for hidden treasures around every corner! And, for all the latest tech news, analysis, and reviews, make sure to follow Tom's Hardware!
- Alex, inspired by Doug Brown's blog post, used several steps including manipulating the Memory control panel, creating a RAM disk, and double-clicking the "The Team" file to reveal an image of the development team working on the beige Power Macs.
- Modern systems, such as Microsoft Edge, still hold Easter eggs; for example, typing "edge://surf" into the address bar summons the Surfing game, reminiscent of the past.
