The Best Virtual Easter Eggs Of All Time

If you missed out on the hunt for eggs this Easter, here’s a chance to relive the festive hunt. We’ve compiled a list of best hidden features purposely locked away in software and web applications, just waiting for you to unearth them.

1. Atari, the first ever software egg

In the early days of software development, programmers’ identities were kept a secret so their status would not surpass that of the hiring company.

The first egg was thought to have occurred in 1979, when Warren Robinett, a programmer for Atari managed to sneak his name into the Atari 2600 game ‘Adventure’.

2. Google Earth Flight Simulator

If you haven’t yet unlocked the flight simulator in Google Earth version 4.2 and higher, press Ctrl + Alt + A in Windows, or Command + Option + A on a Mac, and you will have the option to the fly either a F16 fighter jet or lightweight SR22 propeller plane.

3. Breakdance On Golden Eye

If you tilt your cartridge during game play, the characters begin to break dance. Check out the video below.

4. OpenOffice Calc.Spreadsheet Tic-Tac-Toe

Run the OpenOffice calc.spreadsheet and type =GAME(A2:C4;”TicTacToe”) into any cell and press Enter. This will open hidden game of tic-tac-toe.

5. OpenOffice Calc.Spreadsheet Space Invaders

Using the same OpenOffice calc.spreadsheet program, type =GAME() into any cell. You will get a response that says, “say what?” then type =game(“StarWars”) and press Enter. This will open the classic Space Invaders game.

Apparently these easter eggs also work in NeoOffice for the Mac.

6. Virtual Mac Therapist

In the Mac terminal (or in any command line) type emacs > press Enter > then type xdoctor

This will open an interactive conversation with a shrink named Eliza. Press Control + X Control + C

7. Tetris in uTorrent and Mac Terminal

Open uTorrent and go to the Help menu > select About uTorrent > press the letter T. This will open up a cool game of Tetris.

In the Mac OS you can also open a game of Tetris by going to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal > then type emacs > press Escape + X > then type Tetris.

8. Play Reptile On Mortal Kombat

It was so difficult to meet the requirements to be able to fight Reptile, many players thought it was untrue. Even if you know what to do, pulling it off is another story.

You must be using a later version of the game. The you have to fight on the pit stage when a shadowy figure flying in front of the moon, this rarely happens. If you are lucky enough to see the shadow, and you can beat your opponent without getting hit and without touching block, you get to face Reptile.

Reptile is faster than all the other characters and is capable of performing all of Sub-Zero’s and Scorpions moves. If you defeat him you will earn 10,000,000 points, if you lose, Reptile is likely to use either Sub-Zero’s or Scorpions fatality move on you.

9. Free Wanda The Fish

In Linux Ubuntu, you can free a fish aptly named Wanda. To Do this press Alt + F2.

10. Firefox Robots

Found out more about robots in Firefox 3. Type about:robots in the location bar, this will take you to a page about robots!

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