Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!paperboy!meissner From: meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Wanted: easter eggs Message-ID: Date: 9 Jul 90 18:08:42 GMT References: <9007081641.AA25236@volitans.MorningStar.Com> <31567@cup.portal.com> Sender: news@OSF.ORG Distribution: na Organization: Open Software Foundation Lines: 30 In-reply-to: dbell@cup.portal.com's message of 9 Jul 90 15:26:54 GMT In article <31567@cup.portal.com> dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: | Easter Eggs, huh? Cute name... | | One that comes to mind is in Hewlett Packard's workstation BASIC, | we were scanning the binary code one day, looking for I don't | remember what, when I spotted the string "XYZZY". That looks | familiar, I mumbled; what if I tried it as a command? Sure enough, | instead of the expected "Syntax Error", it responded "I see no caves here." | | Rumor has it that some (one or more?) of HP's instruments reacted | the same way when commanded XYZZY over the bus... | | Dave dbell@cup.portal.com Data General's AOS/VS command line interpretter also had an XYZZY command (XYZZY was the codename for AOS/VS before it was announced). Unlike all other commands in the CLI, xyzzy searched for a user CLI script first before doing the standard action (in the CLI of the time, you normally could not override the standard commands with your own macros). The standard action was to print out "Nothing happens". The OS group implemented an XYZZY CLI script on their machines which would use one of the 10 builtin variables as an index, so it would print a different message the first 32 times it was invoked. Cheap thrills... -- Michael Meissner email: meissner@osf.org phone: 617-621-8861 Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA Do apple growers tell their kids money doesn't grow on bushes?