5 ms·
Anecdote: back in the early 2000s, I regularly installed Windows XP on the machines of school friends and family members and got pretty fast at it. After a few
by lqet 8y ago
Anecdote: back in the early 2000s, I regularly installed Windows XP on the machines of school friends and family members and got pretty fast at it. After a few months, I realized that I had memorized the original Windows XP "default" CD key (the one starting with FCKGW...) by accident. I haven't done an installation of XP in 15 years, yet you could wake me up in the middle of the night and I could tell you this damn key.
- dejawu 8y agoThere was a thread a few days ago where someone mentioned their password was the key to "a very popular software" and someone in the replies guessed it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19298120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19298120
- lqet 8y agoHah, I had no idea that others have this problem too. There must be something to this sequence that makes it very easy to memorize.
- hjk05 8y agoSpaced repetition makes any sequence easy to remember. Which is essentially what being the local “could you install xp”-guy was for this specific key.
- zrobotics 8y agoNot only that, strings are easier to memorize when broken into discrete chunks, which is why it isn't too hard to accidentally memorize a credit card number, and one of the reasons phone numbers are formatted as they are (the other being classifying based on location).
- p1mrx 8y agoMaybe the person who selected it was not fond of the president?
- rohan1024 8y agoFCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-2B7Q8-8TG6W. I am not sure if its correct. edit: yes it is. Checked the link in other thread.
- lqet 8y agoThe last two quintuples are switched, otherwise it is correct. The "RKT-8TG6W" is my favorite part, because it makes for a nice rhyme (at least in German, where "W" is a single syllable"): RKT 8T G6W :)
- Qub3d 8y agoAmerican checking in on the pronunciation: "Arr kay tay, acht tay, gay zex vey"?
- checkyoursudo 8y agoI read your "arr" as in English "are". I am not a native German speaker, but the dialect I learned and my German relatives speak says "r" more like the English word "air".
- bmn__ 8y agoYou're way off. Only monophthongs. /ɛʁ kaː tʰeː axt tʰeː geː zɛks veː/
- ams6110 8y agoThere are a lot of numbers from my past that are still committed to my memory too, even though I haven't used them in years. Old telephone numbers, bank account numbers, long-distance calling card numbers (back when a long-distance phone call was a thing you actually paid for). It's weird.
- Magi604 8y agoThis was me, but with the OG Starcraft: Brood War CD Key. I think I still remember the key, but I'm not sure and I don't have the CD to verify.
- yeahdef 8y agoScott? Is that you?
- ygra 8y agoI still know my Starcraft CD key to this day as well. Bonus: The same key also works for Half-Life. They used the same algorithm.
- astronautjones 8y agoI loved quake iii and similar properties that only checked the last digit, 3 or c
- chkuendig 8y agoYou can use classic starcraft / brood war keys as vouchers on battle.net if you want to verify and make sure you'll always have a digital copy available :)
- loser777 8y agoThe game has been free to play for years now, so you might need an old disc image to get at the checksum algorithm :).
- thegeekpirate 8y agoBrood War didn't come with a CD-key, only the original StarCraft disc did =)
- Magi604 8y agoYeah it was one of the disks, I always installed them in tandem.
- sly010 8y agoI immediately recognized that key :)
- yantrams 8y agoStory of my life too, including the 15 years part! Every once in few years, when I feel like my memory skills are fading, I recite the damn key, pat myself in the back and go back to sleep.
- umanwizard 8y agoThe FCKGW key was written down on one of the documents recovered from Osama bin Laden's compound: https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/61/61C5FB27A2ECCBE2B3269A5589A7F518_serial.txt.doc.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/61/61C5FB27A...
- andrelaszlo 8y agoI just had a similar thing happening a year or two ago. My mom sent me some old backup CDs that she found while cleaning out her basement. I was very happy to find my first attempt at making a game with graphics on one of the discs. The game was written in Visual Basic so I downloaded a copy of the IDE and luckily the installer ran under Wine. When I got to the license screen, some forgotten but apparently not decayed part of my brain clicked into gear and to my surprise I just typed the 12 digit code from memory on the first try, 20 years after I last installed it. Here's the (not so amazing) result. Consider it a "Show HN"? https://vimeo.com/220071855 https://vimeo.com/220071855
- jimmaswell 8y agoReminds me of Game & Watch.
- andrelaszlo 8y agoExactly, I had one - still have it actually, it's working too :)
- _mrmnmly 8y agoMy friend had similar 'super power's but.. with Diablo 2 CD key ;)