Hidden Things in Mac ROMs

Anything about Mac emulation that does not belong in the above categories.

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kataetheweirdo
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Hidden Things in Mac ROMs

Post by kataetheweirdo »

So, I decided to look into the Old World Power Mac G3 ROM. I suddenly stumbled across this image:

Image

I have no idea how to access it, but it definitely is something very new to me. It's made even stranger by the fact it's the only such image in there.
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adespoton
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Re: Hidden Things in Mac ROMs

Post by adespoton »

That one's new to me -- likely it isn't accessible in any way other than by a direct look -- I think at that time, that's the only way they would have got it through QA.
Jorpho
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Re: Hidden Things in Mac ROMs

Post by Jorpho »

There are lots of lists of Apple easter eggs out there, including stuff hidden in the ROMs. (Possibly one of the more famous ones is the hidden boot disk in the Mac Classic, accessed by holding down Command+Option+X+O during startup.)

But yes, that's a new one on me.
kataetheweirdo
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Re: Hidden Things in Mac ROMs

Post by kataetheweirdo »

Massive bump, but I discovered this while digging through the Mac IIvx/IIvi ROM. And it's rather fascinating to see a message like this in an Apple product. This probably wouldn't happen today, but I'm glad it happened at all. This was found in the ROM at 0x4AC8C. I've also edited it for formatting reasons, but is otherwise untouched. Enjoy!
Welcome to Brazil.

ROM Software by David Fung with John Cary, Carl Hewitt and Sam Barone.

Special thanks to Mike Puckett, Nick Vaccaro and Eric Anderson.

Tempus Gibbly by Owen Rubin, Giovanni Agnoli, and David Fung.

Cube-E on Brazil aided and abetted by Dean Yu, Chris Derossi, and the Meanies.

CPU Design by Jim Stockdale with Jim Nealon and Declan McAndrew.
VASP ASIC by Jack Cheney with Steve MacKenzie and Paul Baker.
Special thanks to Keith Venes, Jay Rickard, and Doug Farrar.
PC Board by Robert Grimes.

The Guys in the Lab - Ray Jaafari, Jonathan Calhoun, Tony Greenwell and Cecilia Khanbabaian.

Project Manager (and everything you want) - Josef Friedman
Project Coordinator - Linda Messier
Master of the P.O.s - Fred Irace
Keepers of the General Sanity - Susan Sanders and Kathy Gallagher

EPM furnished by Carol Wright (are we done yet?)

SCM in a flash by Gary Davis, Remi Adeyemo, and Shad Ahmad.

MCSQ Project Leader - Cyril Carag.

Thanks to Marcus Zafarano, Paul Sun, Jeffery Hou, Robert Jasman,
Jan Leger, Brad Post, and Ali Latifi.

Product Marketing by Marc Auerbach.

Extreme Evangelism by Brian Mellea with thanks to Tony Livermore.

Developer Notes by Mark Turner.
Tech Support by Dennis Hescox.
Manuals and User Friendliness by Andrew Swartz.

Lego PD by Barry Marshall, Bill De Meulenaere, Scott Campbell, and Bob Olson.
Burritos by Mercado De La Torre (DF), Bueno Bueno (JC&TG).

DF Thanks Lisa and Ming (for not going crazy), Steve for letting me do this,
as well as congratulating Julie and Mike (separately!).

Best regards to
Ak and Pete, too.JS Thanks Becky (for all those late nights)

CC Thanks his wife Kim, Brandon, and Holly for understanding when he gets home late.
CW It was fun! Yes, Cyril, we are GM!
JF Thanks Everbody who worked on Brazil.

Hope you enjoy it!!
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adespoton
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Re: Hidden Things in Mac ROMs

Post by adespoton »

That was the era when the easter egg was king -- every hardware and software product had at least one, and many had multiple; generally each team stuck something in.

But towards the mid-90s this phenomenon got a bit out of control such that inventive easter eggs were trumping quality control, and most places put a stop to at least most of it. There were some that were so well hidden that they never got found in QA, but most never made it out of development after that period.

For those not in the know, Brazil was the code name for the Mac IIvx, and Cube-E was the codename for System 7.1.

I like this one (can't remember which ROM it's from):

MacsBug Debugger for Macintosh. Copyright Apple Computer 1982-1986. Originally by Motorola. Adapted to Lisa/Mac by Rich Page 1/25/1982. Enhanced by Steve Capps 11/1/1984. Version IV+ by Ken Krugler 5/13/1985. Disassembler by Ira Reuben 11/21/1986. Version 5.3 by Dan Allen 4/22/1987. This version works w/512KB-4MB of RAM, 64KB,128KB, or 256KB ROMs and with 68000/68020/68030/68851

Interestingly, the IIvx text is the only mention of the Blue Meanies anywhere in the ROMs.
kataetheweirdo
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Re: Hidden Things in Mac ROMs

Post by kataetheweirdo »

adespoton wrote: I like this one (can't remember which ROM it's from):

MacsBug Debugger for Macintosh. Copyright Apple Computer 1982-1986. Originally by Motorola. Adapted to Lisa/Mac by Rich Page 1/25/1982. Enhanced by Steve Capps 11/1/1984. Version IV+ by Ken Krugler 5/13/1985. Disassembler by Ira Reuben 11/21/1986. Version 5.3 by Dan Allen 4/22/1987. This version works w/512KB-4MB of RAM, 64KB,128KB, or 256KB ROMs and with 68000/68020/68030/68851
That came from the Mac Classic ROM at 0x67046. But it's also found in the standalone version of MacsBug.
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