COLUMN ONE : A Window on Techno Graffiti : Computer programmers, often seeing themselves as anonymous cogs in a large machine, conceal secret images as a means of self-expression.
Mark Shook, an unassuming, 35-year-old accountant at Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and self-described computer fanatic, had heard the rumors about mysterious, secret messages hidden deep inside computer programs.
On a hunch, he went prospecting for one, using his 20-megahertz, ARC Pro Turbo 386 to probe the intricate matrices of the computer nether world. He flailed at his keyboard for days until he stumbled on an improbable series of keystrokes and finally hit pay dirt.
The blue and pink logo of a well-known software company trundled across the screen, leaving buzzing flies and bits of pink debris in its wake. A moment later, an archrival’s logo swooped down from the upper reaches of the screen and ejected its competitor with the sign-off: “No Problemo.”
“Whoa!” Shook marveled as he viewed what he described as one of the high points of his amateur computing career. “That was cool.”
In the sterile and arcane environs of computer science, Shook had stumbled onto the graffiti of the techno-wonk elite.
Called secret screens, these hidden messages have begun to appear in some of the most popular programs, created by programmers who often labor in obscurity over tasks that leave little room for public recognition or a personal touch.
The messages--also known as doodads and Easter eggs--have become possible in recent years with the increased capabilities of software and machinery. Programmers at some of the largest software companies have placed dozens of hidden messages in their products, from simple lists naming the development team to complex, animated whacks at competitors.
In one program, the heads of the software team drift across the screen and eventually disappear--except for a bald Elvis look-alike identified as T. King. In another, six little men cheer as their company’s logo crushes a green monster representing a competitor.
For programmers, the screens are an effort to put a personal stamp on products they helped create and have a little fun.
“People want recognition for what they’ve done and want a part of themselves in the program,” said Michael J. Miller, editor and publisher of PC magazine. “There’s a bit of art that comes through in all this.”
And some anxiety comes through too. Much as people fear subliminal ads on television or hidden satanic messages on heavy metal albums, the secret screens have in some ways fed popular distrust of machines that are such a pervasive part of modern life.
But what is perhaps most remarkable, given the general banality of the screens’ messages, is the extraordinary amount of time programmers have invested in creating them and users have spent looking for them.
Shook said it took him about two weeks of dogged keyboard pounding to find the secret screen in Microsoft Corp.’s Excel 4.0.
“It’s knowing something you’re not supposed to know,” Shook said proudly. “Also, it comes down to having nothing better to do.”
His route to discovery: Load Excel 4.0 and call up a blank work sheet with a Standard Tool Bar on top. Use the right-hand button on the mouse and click. From the Customize option, select Custom, drag the Solitaire icon to an empty spot on the Tool Bar. Under Assign to Tool, click OK, click Close, then hold the Ctrl, Alt, Shift keys while clicking on the Solitaire icon.
“It was great,” Shook said. “Of course, I called everyone I knew.”
By most accounts, there have been secret screens as long as there have been programmers, albeit in a much cruder form. A Microsoft programmer named Mark Zbikowski wrote one of the earliest examples in personal computer software a decade ago. Zbikowski needed to assign a symbol to indicate the beginning of certain types of programs for IBM-compatible computers. He decided to use his own initials, MZ, which are now placed at the start of literally thousands of programs.
“He immortalized himself,” said Brian Livingston, a Seattle-based author on computer subjects and columnist for InfoWorld magazine. “His initials are famous, but no one remembers his name.”
Livingston said the need for recognition and the need to personalize software are products of two realities of programming life.
One is that programmers essentially see themselves as creative people, like novelists in a way, although some outsiders tend to see them as nerdy technicians or crazed hackers.
The other is that modern software is far more complex than before, often requiring the collaboration of many people, leading at times to a sense of being nothing more than part of a huge machine.
“As a company grows, it gets harder to fight that sense of being a cog,” said Bill Jones, who was part of the team that wrote Ami Pro 2.0, the program that features the Elvis look-alike. “We’re always being creative at solving customers’ problems but that’s not nearly as fun (as being) creative just to be silly. Why does anyone have a food fight? I don’t know, but it makes you feel good.”
Previously, there were severe limitations in computer memory that, among other things, eliminated the possibility of creating battling logos in full color.
Only within the last two or three years has a new generation of software and machinery opened up vast amounts of memory. The result has been an explosion in secret screens. Even the gray powerhouse of computerdom, IBM, has a secret screen in one well-known program, OS/2 2.0. It displays a picture of a beach along with the names of the program’s development team when the keys Ctrl, Shift, Alt and O are struck together.
Many companies recognize the need for programmers to put a little of themselves in what they have created and tolerate the secret screens as a harmless outlet for self-expression.
The reaction from others is not always as cheery.
WordPerfect Corp., whose word processor is portrayed in one Microsoft secret screen as a green monster (ultimately squashed by a Microsoft logo), is only mildly amused by the phenomenon.
“It’s just unprofessional,” WordPerfect spokesman Jeff Larsen said. “First, we feel our developers should develop software for the user. Secondly, we feel no need to take a potshot at the competition.”
Ernest Mandoky, a Venice computer user, called the secret screens childish and annoying.
“It’s programmers’ graffiti,” he said. “It’s incredible that they do this.”
Other elements of the phenomenon have been viewed as much more disturbing.
New Yorkers awoke one morning in April to a front-page headline in the New York Post: “PROGRAM OF HATE . . . Millions of computers carry secret message that urges death to Jews in New York City.”
Jews reacted with outrage. The Anti-Defamation League sent a letter of complaint. The Microsoft programmers involved, many of them Jewish, were incredulous.
“How could somebody really be that gullible?” asked Brad Silverberg, a Microsoft vice president in charge of the program in question.
According to the article, striking the keys N, Y and C (an abbreviation for New York City) in one part of Microsoft’s popular Windows program generates three symbols: a skull and crossbones, a Star of David and a thumbs-up sign.
“There’s no way it could be a random coincidence,” the Post was told by a friend of the computer consultant who claimed to have found the message. “It’s pretty scary. I was pretty shocked by the whole thing.”
The symbols, called wingdings, are technically not secret screens because no effort was ever made to hide them, but those unfamiliar with the program perceived them to be exactly that--a secret message embedded in the program.
The symbols are part of Microsoft’s popular Windows program. More than 200 of the symbols, which include hand gestures, shaded boxes, a happy face, a telephone icon and a pair of glasses, were more or less randomly assigned to the keyboard.
Microsoft’s Silverberg said most programmers at first considered the accusation of wrongdoing too ridiculous to believe. After all, “this was the New York Post, not the New York Times.”
The furor eventually began to fade after the Anti-Defamation League and other groups concluded that there was no malicious intent by Microsoft.
But the intensity of the reaction left Silverberg with the uneasy feeling that the controversy had touched some deep fear in the public’s mind.
“The wingdings were like Rorschach blots,” he said. “It probably said more about the person than the symbols.”
For weeks, computer users around the country played with wingdings, finding new and sometimes equally weird combinations, such as “NUN” (two poison signs with a cross in between) and IBM (an open hand, an OK sign and a bomb).
Although Microsoft was unaware of it, the symbols for “L.A.” turn out to be two suspiciously apt post-riot images: a frowning face and a hand making a peace sign.
Silverberg, who is tired of the controversy, stopped to contemplate this new revelation.
“I’m going to have to talk with my astrologer about that one,” he said.
Fake Furor
The New York Post sparked a furor in April with an article accusing Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software company, of embedding a secret message in its popular Windows program that urged death to all Jews in New York City.
Incredulous Microsoft programmers denied the charges, saying these characters were arranged in no particular order. Some readers apparently misinterpreted a collection of common characters.
Here are the characters assigned to upper-case letters:
Secret Screens, Easter Eggs and Doodads
In the past two years, elaborate secret messages -- known as secret screens, Easter eggs or doodads -- have begun appearing in software programs. The messages, mostly playful images of a program’s authors or light animated jabs at the competition, have become the graffiti of the technological age. Here’s how to find a few of the secret screens:
Microsoft Word for Windows: Open a new document and select Record Macro under the Tools menu. Create a new macro named SPIFF and click on the OK box. From the Tools menu again, select Stop Recorder, then Macro and click on SPIFF. Select Edit and delete the Sub Main and End Sublines. Under the File menu, select Close and click on Yes. Go to the Help menu, select About and click on the Word logo. Six little men appear, trying to escape a green WordPerfect monster. They end up squashing it with a Word logo.
Norton Desktop for Windows: Select About from the Help menu. Click three times while holding down the keys N, D and W. A picture of the development team pops up with quotations from Hilaire Belloc, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Victor Hugo, etc.
