23 ms·
If Looks Could Kill
- mark-r 5y agoBill Gates prided himself on being the smartest person in the room. He was probably over the top mad at being shown up. If he could have gotten away with killing at that moment, he would have.
- seg_lol 5y agoJeffrey had to bear that brunt.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- marcan_42 5y agoMichael Steil at pagetable.com wrote an article about how this easter egg was done across different versions of Microsoft BASIC. https://www.pagetable.com/?p=43 https://www.pagetable.com/?p=43 Bill Gates showed up in the comments :-)
- RealBillGates 5y agoBill Gates can show up here, it doesn't mean it's really Bill Gates.
- marcan_42 5y agoIIRC Michael told me he looked up the IP address and it seemed legitimate.
- graderjs 5y agoCome on, as if Real Bill Gates has anything better to do these days than prowl around on HN
- gvb 5y agoThe real real Bill Gates registered January 5, 2012 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BillGates https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BillGates
- RealBillGates 5y agoI forgot my password to that account.
- jaywalk 5y agoI choose to believe that you're actually Bill Gates.
- aloer 5y agoJeff Barr is in there as well :) His name links to his page
- awakeasleep 5y agoI hope this becomes a standard part of the “no easter eggs in cURL?!” discourse that makes such frequent appearances on this site. If we must keep discussing it.
- spicybright 5y agoI see almost no one disagreeing about having no easter eggs in curl on this site.
- ineedasername 5y agoMaybe we can start one up? Here, I'll have a go: "I'm a pro-easter egg ideologue and will tolerate no software that does not contain such silliness, nor should any other rational, stable, intelligent person!" There, now it's your turn.
- auslegung 5y agoYour mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!
- asn1parse 5y agosl
- ineedasername 5y agoI'm not sure how you knew all if that about me, but the accuracy is astonishing! But unless I know your position on Easter eggs then I cannot accurately determine to hate you or not.
- vitiral 5y agoEaster eggs require the easter Bunny. Bunnies don't lay eggs. Therefore easter eggs don't egg-sist. Q.E.D.
- gigel82 5y agoDave Plummer posted about this a week ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsNbH_ohKxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsNbH_ohKxA (it's an interesting channel to follow from an old timer Microsoftie)
- pentagrama 5y agoThanks for share this channel! I find many interesting videos and added to my watch list. I enjoy a lot when old folks set up YT channels to tell interesting stories from the 70-90s, the stereotypical YouTube are young people or people that just talk about current stuff. Recently I found the channel of the legendary Hip Hop producer DJ Premier, he uploads a series called "So Wassup? DJ Premier's Salute to the Floppy Disk" where he told stories of how his 90s songs come to life, so many good stories from that, recommended! Here is the playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJj47po2m-w&list=PLWDrXC9_8Kmgwu2zeWdDU1n6fPqIh98Xr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJj47po2m-w&list=PLWDrXC9_8K...
- blibble 5y agohe can be entertaining but beware of pretty much anything he says about Linux see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29958684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29958684
- theandrewbailey 5y agoBill apparently responded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjPAfdkBprk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjPAfdkBprk
- spicybright 5y agoHa! Reminds me of the recently posted "Stolen from Apple" feature on the original macintosh. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Stolen_From_Apple.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Stolen_From_Appl...
- imadethis 5y agoSteve Jasik (supposedly) showing up in the comments is the cherry on top
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- marcan_42 5y agoFun fact: macOS used to encrypt its system applications as a form of copy protection on Intel machines, using encryption keys that were read from the System Management Controller chip on the board. They don't do that any more on Apple Silicon machines, and the entire OS is free to download from their CDN, completely unencrypted. Still, though, the SMC on M1 machines (which is now part of the M1 chip itself, and completely different from the one on Intel boxes) continues to hold those very same keys, and they're still "secret" and omitted when you enumerate them. macOS no longer even reads them, but you can dump them with the debug tooling I wrote for Asahi Linux a few weeks ago. $ python tools/smccli.py m1n1 base: 0x100046dc000 Fetching ADT (0x00070000 bytes)... [...] [smcep] Starting up Have fun! >>> smc.smcep.read("OSK0", 16) + smc.smcep.read("OSK1", 16) > 20:0x4f534b3000102010 (TYPE=0x10, UNK=0x0, ID=0x2, SIZE=0x10, KEY=0x4f534b30) < 20:0x202000 > 20:0x4f534b3100103010 (TYPE=0x10, UNK=0x0, ID=0x3, SIZE=0x10, KEY=0x4f534b31) < 20:0x203000 b'ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc'
- saagarjha 5y agoI seem to recall this also being exposed in the commpage.
- 5y ago
- CoastalCoder 5y agoI may be misinterpreting the story, but did Gates basically sabotage the computer (temporarily) of a trade show attendee?
- duxup 5y agoI think he just wanted to trigger an easter egg.
- adenozine 5y agoNo, he was expecting the behavior of an Easter egg, which had been removed in a debug sweep because it could collide with typical usage of a command in BASIC. So, his command should've done a neat trick, and it didn't, and he was furious.
- geocrasher 5y agoBill Gates was trying to show off an Easter Egg (hidden silly feature) that he himself had planted in DOS. Unbeknownst to him, it had been removed. Instead of printing "MICROSOFT" 10 times, it hung the machine.
- dec0dedab0de 5y agoit was BASIC, not DOS. I think this was a Commodore computer he was talking about.
- geocrasher 5y agoFunny thing is I know it's BASIC and not DOS but I still wrote DOS. I blame lack of sleep, caffeine, and... something. But yeah my mistake there.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- consultutah 5y agoSort of, but on accident. He expected the command he entered to trigger the Easter egg and print Microsoft 10 times, but on the PET, they had removed the Easter egg.
- willcipriano 5y ago> it really was a bug that could cause code not to work if a programmer really wanted to execute WAIT 6502! Imagine running into that problem during that era. No stack overflow, no Google. Just "MICROSOFT!" and confusion.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- anyfoo 5y agoProgrammers were much smaller in numbers, most of them probably enthusiasts, and they pretty much had to understand many more low level details of their machines to effectively use them. Those machines, like the PET here, were also many orders of magnitude simpler than today's computers. Chances are, someone who actually needed to do "WAIT 6502, x", which is a pretty bespoke statement especially if there is no widely documented device or (interrupt-modified) system variable behind it[1], would be able to figure out the easter egg. And then probably race to publish it in a magazine somehow, so that its existence could be repeated many many times in the press over the decades, which is pretty much what happened. [1] If that were the case then the easter egg couldn't be there almost by definition.
- bobsmooth 5y agoDavid Plummer has a YouTube channel where he covers this Easter Egg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsNbH_ohKxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsNbH_ohKxA
- Terry_Roll 5y agoIn the early days of windows, many computer stores would have windows running on various pc's with little or not security, so it was very quick and easy to edit the win.ini "run=win.exe" line to just "run=". As soon as the computer was rebooted, it messed up and unless you knew how simple it was to restore windows, it would force the shop into reinstalling windows again.
- folkrav 5y agoI worked in a Canadian electronics store chain about a decade ago, the demo laptops were just pulled out of the box and setup without password most of the time, depending on who set it up. There was no particular security other than a Kensington lock and them being physically close to the registers.
- digitallyfree 5y agoThe early days? Even today I see many demo machines setup with a default account and full admin rights, and kids mess with them all the time.
- pjerem 5y agoAh ! I’m proud of our kids. I will be sad when this will not be possible anymore because the devices became too closed.
- asdff 5y agoFor a time, you could have jailbroken your iphone by visiting a website in safari, no computer or any sort of wired connection needed. You'd go to the apple store and some kid would have gotten cydia installed on all the demo iphones already
- emptyparadise 5y agoHah, they used to have a DNS filter for Jailbreak Me at the Apple Stores.
- ryandrake 5y ago
- myrandomcomment 5y agoDave Plummer... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Plummer_(programmer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Plummer_(programmer) ...on this exact topic including a follow up where Bill answers his email about it. Story: https://youtu.be/HsNbH_ohKxA https://youtu.be/HsNbH_ohKxA Answer from Bill Gates on it: https://youtu.be/VjPAfdkBprk https://youtu.be/VjPAfdkBprk
- rukshn 5y agoRelated video with more details by ex MS systems engineer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsNbH_ohKxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsNbH_ohKxA
- josephcsible 5y agoWas there ever a legitimate use case for NOLIST, or was it only useful for hiding what a computer is doing from its owner?
- morcheeba 5y agoSure! Printers were slow and paper not an unlimited resource, so you can hide stuff that you don't need printed. For example, commonly-used macro definitions, SINE tables, or hardware drivers. It was just a tool to print only the stuff you were debugging at the time. Of course it can be abused if the only thing being delivered is a hard copy. I'm a bit surprised that the original source code wasn't delivered and the customer built it themselves. But assemblers often ran on mainframes, and that wasn't cheap.
- atulatul 5y agoThis reminds me of Joel's My First BillG Review https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-review/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-rev...
- anonymousiam 5y agoI remember walking around a trade show in the early 80's and doing something similar. It was a "HP Microwave Symposium" and aside from lots of good talks and papers, the exhibit hall had lots of high dollar HP (later Agilent/Keysight) RF test equipment. One of the items on display was a HP8566 spectrum analyzer which had a (primitive by today's standards, but) "smart" display capable of drawing vector graphics, time-linear graphs, and text. After using one on my own for a while, I had become curious about the display so I had learned everything that I could about it. So down on the exhibit hall floor, I walked up to the instrument while the sales guy was proclaiming how great it was (which was true) and I entered eight lines of code (about 30 keystrokes). Then I pressed the button to view trace C (which most people still don't know about) and up popped a rolling blinking text display of my name. Most of the people nearby were impressed, but since the instrument was no longer displaying the RF spectrum that the sales guy was talking about, he said; "I know how to fix that." Then he walked over and pressed the green "Instrument Preset" button, which the HP documentation said would always restore the instrument to a known starting point. When the display did not change, the sales guy yelled at me; "WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?" (My program was in Trace C of display memory, which is not initialized by the Instrument Preset function.) So after watching him panic for a moment, I walked over and swapped traces B&C (shift-key followed by the swap A&B button). Now my program was in trace B (and blanked) so the screen returned to normal. Everyone was relieved! So just before walking away, I swapped my program back into trace C, viewed trace C, and hit the green preset button again. As I walked to the next exhibit, I saw him cycle the AC power to the instrument in frustration.
- futharkshill 5y agoThat was extremely inappropriate behaviour from you if this story is true. I feel bad for everyone else involved.
- mcorning 5y agoExtremely inappropriate behavior is a pretty strong accusation. Seems like a harmless nerdy prank that occurred 40 years ago. It's not like he changed the monitor to say "Poop Fare."
- sitkack 5y agoThat is phenomenal that he is blogging, https://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/leonard-tramiel/ https://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/leonard-tramiel/ Thank you Leonard!
- pm90 5y agoPerhaps unpopular opinion: I find Gates' need to show off in this particular manner, and his reaction to it not going as expected, to be in really poor taste, even if the author themselves seem to have not minded it. There were so many ways in which this interaction could have gone. He could have a side chat with the author, talked about other instances where this did work etc. But no, he had to try to assert dominance in this really weird way, and when it didn't work, it made him mad.
- smoldesu 5y agoThat's the point of trade shows. Showing off is what you do at these things.
- pm90 5y agoSure, I’ve been to trade shows. You can usually show off your wares without being a dick to others.
- bananamerica 5y agoI wouldn't say unpopular, but it's hard to judge someone so severely for their behavior on a trade show 30+ years ago where none of us where present.
- pm90 5y agoNot sure I buy this argument. Are you only going to ever judge people based on first hand experience?
- bananamerica 5y agoNo of course not. But I'm less likely to do so when I'm far removed from an event in both time and space.
- jcranberry 5y agoI imagine the story is exaggerated.
- khazhoux 5y agoSomehow, I never knew that Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore (and I had both a C64 and an Amiga) was an Auschwitz survivor. And now I just lost the last 40 minutes walking through Auschwitz I and II on Google Street View... :-\
- erosenbe0 5y agoHe spent 5+ years in the Lodz ghetto so he never went beyond third grade. He was transported to Auschwitz in '45, spent some weeks there and was sent to Ahlem. He was rescued at Ahlem and interesting fact -- Henry Kissinger was on hand that day with the US Army battalion.
- sgt 5y agoCheck out Auschwitz III, even better.
- khazhoux 5y agoI think you're being snarky, which is not cool. But if you're not, then I'll tell you that there's really nothing left of Auschwitz III (Monowitz). It's all demolished and it is a rural neighborhood now. Only a few scattered remnants, like this one-man concrete shelter for an SS guard: https://goo.gl/maps/ThX17MZKURGsAnbLA https://goo.gl/maps/ThX17MZKURGsAnbLA
- venusdetective 5y ago[flagged]
- venusdetective 5y ago[flagged]
- noduerme 5y agoHas anyone tried this in BASIC on a TRS-80 Model 100? That's the machine I learned to code on as a kid and allegedly the last one Gates himself wrote the kernel for...
- incanus77 5y agoI just got up, walked into my office, and tried it on a 102, but WAIT doesn't seem to be recognized. I'll try it on my 100 later, but I'd wager the same.
- noduerme 5y agoheheh. Yeah, I don't remember WAIT being a function on that device. Very cool that you still have both of those. I would love to poke around on one again, one day.
- incanus77 5y agoYep, no dice on either. Consulted all the docs I could see and no sign of WAIT. There's an INP for reading a port, but no waiting for it.
- Starwatcher2001 5y agoPretty sure it's not in the original TRS-80 model 1 Level II ROM. (Also a Microsoft version). I disassembled it to see what unused key words it had, then revectored some of the disk related commands to my own code. (Before I got a floppy disk system for it).
- _pmf_ 5y agoTrade shows are a particular kind of crazy.
- gingeralgo 5y agoDude. At that point you are emboldened by the Fates to say, “Bond—Janes Bond.”