A new Easter egg has just been discovered in Windows 1.0, a 37-year-old operating system. Discovered by a handyman Lucas Brooksthe Easer Egg would have been impossible to discover when Windows 1.0 was released due to the way it was encrypted.
As Lucas Brooks explained, the easter egg shows a list of credits for most (if not all) Windows team members. These developers are not credited for their roles, although many household names are included, such as Gabe Newell (of Valve fame) and Steve Ballmer (everyone’s favorite hype man).
I spent all day today reverse engineering early Windows binaries to hunt easter eggs. Here is a list of easter eggs in different versions of Windows 1.0 to 3.0 and the keystrokes needed to trigger them. https://t.co/ecqLN1NoDg. Try them yourself! pic.twitter.com/lr5Cfd5XLu
—Lucas Brooks (@mswin_bat) March 19, 2022
Microsoft encrypted this easter egg at the end of the “Smiley Face” bitmap file, and it would technically be impossible to find it when Windows 1.0 was released. Lucas Brooks could only access it by modifying binaries and pulling other tricks – we don’t know if Microsoft intended to leave this Easter egg in Windows, by the way.
Previously, Windows fans thought that these kinds of easter eggs only appeared starting with Windows 3.0. This iteration of Windows included an Easter egg and several references to Microsoft Bear, which was the mascot of the Windows 3.1 development team.
Source: Lucas Brooks through WinFuture