Cr-48's Chrome OS Easter egg: Blue screen of snark
Brad Wells has found the little joke Google programmers hid in the prototype laptop for Chrome OS, the company's browser-based operating system.
A couple of months after Easter itself came and went, the Easter egg Google shipped with its Chrome OS prototype laptops has finally been discovered.
Brad Wells found the Easter egg. Aided by a little Google searching, he found out how to activate a fake blue screen of death--one of the "legacy" leftovers from the PC era Google hopes to banish with its browser-based operating system. Then, with an ASCII code converter, he found a parody of the legalese that causes me a lot more heartburn these days than BSODs.
Wells dug up the egg after Chrome OS programmer Bill Richardson needled mailing list readers that the Easter egg had been unknown for six months.
The short version of how to see the Easter egg: enable the Cr-48's developer mode and type "xyzzy" during the boot process.
Before you do, though, be warned: Cape does not enable wearer to fly.