Often, hardware designers include nonfunctional additions into designs to make them feel more personal. Commonly known as easter eggs, these additions can often go unnoticed by the public for years. While taking apart an Atari San Francisco Rush: The Rock sound board, reader [Jason] noticed a hidden message on the PCB (see above). Other more recent hardware easter eggs include the inside of the Zune HD, which has the inscription “For our Princess” to commemorate a development team member who passed away, or the Amiga 1000 which features the signatures of the design team on the inside if the case (Pictures after the break).
What we want from you: We want to see the best HARDWARE easter eggs you have found or seen. Leave us a comment with a video, picture, or article that explains what you found, and possibly the background story behind it. Anyone can google easter eggs, and we all know about the easter eggs all over DVDs, video games, etc, but we prefer the kind you find when you are busy voiding your hardwares warranty.
Edit: good catch, that was the Amiga 1000 not an Atari 1000. Thanks to all the commentors.
Atari 1000 case [via OldComputers]
Zune HD internals [via iFixit]
on old apple birdhouse Plus and SE/30 macintosh computers, the ones that are really really cute, there are also signatures of the Apple team.
The naval RADAR, AN/SPS-49, would play “Anchors Aweigh” when given the right command sequence. Since the radar system did not have any speakers in the traditional sensor the song would be played by the hums and the clicks of the electronics of the air-search RADAR system.
I recall fondly on my old TRS-80 Model 3 that if you ran DEBUG and loaded DEBUG into itself and scrolled all the way to the bottom you discovered the message “Hello you rummy buzzard”!
My company works on now-defunct temp controllers. The company that made them went belly-up after the owner died. We bought their stuff, but the software to make the PROM used in the controller was missing. We decided to just copy directly from the PROM and everything appeared fine. After putting it in, it would act fine until about an hour later when it would shut itself off (usually an overtemp safety procedure). When powering it back on, it would scroll COUntErfEIt across the display. With him being dead, we ended up having to rewrite the firmware.
my first work PC was a Dell System 200 (80286 processor).
The first thing I spotted when I opened it up to take a look inside was the phrase “SPEED IS THE EDGE” silkscreened where the 80287 maths co-processor was supposed to go – I thought that was cool, and I still do.
Along the same (assembly) lines as javier’s comment.
My dad told the story of a car that had an annoying rattle in it. After many trips to the dealer, a Coke bottle was found inside the box frame. In it was a note. “How long did it take you to find this?”
Urban Legend?
The VHT Deliverance guitar amp has these silkscreened on it:
“Power Tube Sockets – proudly and confidently PCB mounted since 1989”
“Please note: All internet gurus, eyeletboard snobs, point to point apologists, teflon wire curmudgeons and ceramic tube socket know-nothings are cordially and sincerely invited to kiss my lily white ass. SMF November 2004”
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t272/DCC318/vhtdeliverancepcbep1.jpg
http://img63.imageshack.us/i/failg.jpg/
how about a typo?
up, down, lift, right?
I have a video of the HP scanner playing Fur Elise:
http://dvigroup.smugmug.com/Videos/Misc/5985218_eEw6y#373826357_hStqf
Also, next time you’re waiting for a table in an Applebee’s, if they have the brass posts on the rails, the employees often hide notes under the spheres. Some places have glued them down because it got so bad, but you can still find little notes here and there sometimes.
The Cisco 12000 series routers have the inofficial(?) name and logo of the project silkscreened on the GRP (Gigabit Route Processor):
http://www.kumari.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=331
(I did not take the picture, but I’ve seen the logo myself. It is on GRP and GRP-B cards.) The Cisco expansion of the acronym is Big Fast Router. Yep.
I was once taking apart a “alpha smart”
on the pcb it said something like All get up and shout the alpha smart is out! Dont quote me on that but i remember it said something noteworthy
If anyone has one they should take it apart and post pix
I don’t get some of these e-eggs, it looks like some of them actually require extra manufacturing processes to add on for no obvious profitable reason. I understand the IC e-eggs, as they don’t require extra costs to add, but some of the other stuff does. Also the coke bottle in the car is an urban legend, it’s been around for a long time, in another version of the story, it’s a nut.
I found an easter egg on the inside of a Rockford Fosgate bass knob a couple years back. If you open the bass knob case to do a flush mount install, which many people and installers do, there is a printing of Johnny Chimpo from the Supertroopers Movie holding a wrench that says “TONY D.”. It is reffering to Anthony Diamora (Spelling?), there head engineer and designer of such 12V wonders as the Rockford Fosgate T15KW.
Some versions of the Nintendo DS Lite had button contacts shaped like peace symbols:
http://www.modd3d.com/articles/item/hidden-peace-symbols-on-ds-lite-board
It’s possible someone working on the rush boards was a metal fan. There’s a song by Cycle Sluts From Hell called I Wish You Were A Beer.
It’s a stretch but still… :)
The last cellphone I reworked had the initials of the inspector on the inside in big letters, it was weird because I have the same initials and I usually sign the inside of things when I’m done with them… If u happen to buy a used fleet car (one that was from a rental agency) you’ll be surprised at what you might find, I used to draw a good ol cock and balls underneath whatever panel I would work on (as long as the agency couldn’t see it)
i found some singnitures in my sidewinder joystick befor i sold it
I was recently modding my xbox and found to my suprise a signature on the motherboard. like with sharpie. the seal had been up until the unbroken and as best as i can read it says mr3f4 or something. heres a link to the picture
http://s41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/snakeman2058/?action=view¤t=Photo10271249.jpg
email me at snakeman2058 at gmail if you have any ideas about what it could be
I was watching a movie on my zune hd the other day and i noticed that on the side of mine it says hello from seattle. It is located on the bottom of the left side of the zune hd check it out :)
how do you get eggs without taking apart computers go to farms and stuff like that
how do you get loads of eggs by staying at your xzoo
I found this photo of a circuit board from an Atari Flashback system. It shows “fatmo” printed on the board. Not sure if that refers to the little chip of whatever above it, or the person who made the board, who’s a pretty portly fellow :-)
http://s1246.photobucket.com/albums/gg601/josepe2/?action=view¤t=flashback.jpg