Developer

Software rivalry Easter Eggs revealed

By // October 22, 2007, 12:23 AM PST

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  • By Greg Shultz

    While battles between software companies usually take place in the marketing arena, some of these battles have been waged in Easter Eggs hidden away in software.

    In this gallery, we’ll take a look at the Easter Egg battle waged by Word against WordPerfect and the Easter Egg battle between Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    As you may know, pretty much all throughout the late 1980's WordPerfect was the dominant DOS-based word processor in the industry. However, Microsoft kept on perfecting DOS-based Word in hopes that some day it would overtake and leave WordPerfect in the dust. As fate would have it, Microsoft beat WordPerfect to the Windows platform and Microsoft Word 2.0 for Windows was already well entrenched by the time WordPerfect 5.1 for Windows was released in late 1991.

    Predicting their victory, Word’s developers buried a taunting Easter Egg in Microsoft Word 2.0 for Windows. As you’ll see, this taunting Easter Egg actually became a reality.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    To access this Easter Egg, you launch Microsoft Word 2.0 for Windows normally.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    You then pull down the Tools menu and select the Macro command.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    When you see the Macro dialog box, type Spiff in the Macro Name text box and then click the Edit button.

    Spaceman Spiff was the code-named for Word 2.0 for Windows while it was being developed.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    You then see a new macro editing window, with the default Sub MAIN and End Sub instructions. You delete the instructions and then close the macro editing window by pulling down the File menu and choosing the Close command.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    When you see the prompt dialog box, you click Yes to save the changes.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    Pull down the Help menu and select the About Word command. When you see the About dialog box, click the Word icon.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    You’ll then see a bunch of screen bean-like men come running into the dialog box. These stick figure men represent the Microsoft Word development team.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    The men will line up once they reach the OK button.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    In a moment, a green monster, which represents WordPerfect, will begin raising its head and the men will jump into action.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    The monster holds up a sign showing a Reveal Code-like screen with the WordPerfect initials.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    The men go to work building a stick-man pyramid that allows one man to crawl to the top.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    The man at the top then races across the text towards the Word icon.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    The man at the top then jumps up and down to loosen the Word icon.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    The Word icon then drops down and crushes the green WordPerfect monster.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    Once the monster is gone, the Word icon resumes it original position and the men begin jumping up and down to celebrate.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    With their job done, the men then run off the screen.

  • Word vs. WordPerfect

    As soon as the men are gone, the dialog box goes black, a fireworks display begins, and then the standard Easter Egg credits appear.

  • Navigator vs. Internet Explorer

    When the Internet, or World Wide Web as it was more commonly referred to back then, really began to take off, Netscape Navigator was the browser of choice. In fact, Microsoft almost missed that boat because they didn’t even have a browser in Windows 95. However, when Microsoft began to go after Netscape by putting Internet Explorer up against Navigator, Netscape's developers decided to passively retaliate via an Easter Egg. And of course, Internet Explorer’s developers responded with an Easter Egg of their own.

  • Navigator vs. Internet Explorer

    In Netscape Navigator 1.1, if you typed about:mozilla in the Location box, you saw a screen showing text from the fictional the Book of Mozilla.

    Here the chapter and verse number 12:10 refers to December 10, 1994, the date that Netscape Navigator 1.0 was released.

    The message here appears to reference two facts: First, that poorly wrtten HTML code would blink when veiwed with Navigator's internal code viewer. Second, that Internet Explorer did not support Netscape’s Blink tag.

  • Navigator vs. Internet Explorer

    In Netscape Navigator 6, if you typed about:mozilla in the Location box, you saw a another screen showing different text from the fictional the Book of Mozilla.

    Here the chapter and verse number 3:31 refers to March 31, 1998, the date that Netscape Navigator code was released to the open source community.

    The message here is predicting that by releasing the Netscape Navigator code to the open source community, the resulting browser will become more widely used than Internet Explorer and that Microsoft (Mammon) will start losing market share.

  • Navigator vs. Internet Explorer

    In September of 1997, when Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4, its developers responded to the about:mozilla assault by incorporating their own version in their browser. If you typed about:mozilla in the Address box, you saw a blue screen.

    The subtle message here is that using Netscape Navigator in Windows would cause the operating system to crash and show the blue screen of death.

  • Navigator vs. Internet Explorer

    After AOL closed its Netscape browser division on July 15, 2003, the Mozilla Foundation was created to continue the browser's development.

    If you typed about:mozilla in the Location box in any version of the browser developed by the Mozilla foundation, you saw a another screen showing different text from the fictional the Book of Mozilla.

    Here the chapter and verse number 7:15 refers the date AOL dropped Netscape. The message refers to death of the Netscape browser, the birth of the Firebird (now called Firefox) browser, and how this new browser will continue its assault on Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

By Greg Shultz

While battles between software companies usually take place in the marketing arena, some of these battles have been waged in Easter Eggs hidden away in software.

In this gallery, we’ll take a look at the Easter Egg battle waged by Word against WordPerfect and the Easter Egg battle between Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

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About Greg Shultz

Greg Shultz is a freelance Technical Writer. Previously, he has worked as Documentation Specialist in the software industry, a Technical Support Specialist in educational industry, and a Technical Journalist in the computer publishing industry.