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By BILL GATES
Distributed by New York Times Special Features
QUESTION:
What are your policies regarding credit-screen ``Easter eggs''
in your software programs? Are they forbidden? Tolerated? Or
perhaps even encouraged?
ANSWER: An ``Easter egg'' is
a feature hidden in a software program. Many commercial
programs contain secret screen credits that list the people
involved in creating the product. Getting the attributions to
display on the screen requires knowledge of arcane,
undocumented commands. For example, the credit screens for the
spreadsheet Microsoft Excel 95 are reached by selecting row 95
in a new workbook, pressing the Tab key, choosing the Help
menu's About Microsoft Microsoft Excel command, and holding
down the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys simultaneously while
clicking the Tech Support button. This puts you in a roomlike
environment that you navigate with the four arrow keys. Go up
a stairway to see scrolling lists of credits. Turn away from
the stairway and type ``excelkfa'' to reveal a zigzag walkway
that leads to photographs of some of the people who created
the software. It's hard to navigate the walkway without
falling off - so beware! (These instructions work in many
different language versions of the spreadsheet software,
although in some countries the Help menu is called the ``?''
menu.)
We don't mind including
credit screens in a product, as long as they don't burn up too
much development time or require many resources of the
consumer's machine. A lot of work and pride go into creating a
software product, and it's understandable that the people
involved enjoy getting credit. Unfortunately, the credit list
can never be comprehensive because so many people contribute.
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