TI Easter Eggs

[cbmeeks]

Are there any known Easter eggs in the TI-99/4A or some of it's software?

 

With Easter coming up, I thought it would be fun to ask.

[+mizapf]

I don't know, but I know that I was once fooled by an April 1st joke. In a computer magazine there was a listing for Extended Basic with a lot of data lines. Apart from that, there was an ACCEPT statement, some DISPLAYs etc. It should be saved as DSK1.LOAD, or it would not work. The program was described as adding a HELP command to Extended Basic using assembly language routines. The author claimed that you should really carefully check that all data entries were correct, or the computer could be damaged by overheating driver circuits.

 

 

 

If I remember correctly, the data entries were no assembly language program but a set of strings. The READY prompt was faked. You could try to enter a program, and it kept the lines as you entered them, but at some time it said it unfortunately lost its memory. When you entered HELP, it just said you should help yourself and faked a crash by some random sounds and flickering screen.

(Well, yes, I was about 15 years old.)

 

 

 

Oh, I forgot: The author was a person named A. Ripl.

Edited April 1, 2019 by mizapf

[cbmeeks]

That's awesome.

 

Speaking of April 1st, I almost shut down on this day. Seems like everyone and his brother try the next big Google April Fools' Day prank online.

[+Schmitzi]

[+Ksarul]

There was the sick swan Easter egg in the earlier versions of MDOS. It was a truly mutant rendition of the boot swan. . .ISTR that there are hidden gems in a few of the game programs for the TI as well.

[Shift838]

There is an easter egg in my Adventure game, 'The Stafford Predicament' I created a few years ago for the Adventure cartrdige. No one has ever found it..

 

HERE

Edited April 1, 2019 by Shift838

[sometimes99er]

Easter Egg Alert! Howard E. Scheer sat down with the TI-99/4A Videogame House and provided some insight on the development of Pac-Man for the TI system. In that interview, he talked about a very rare Easter Egg...rare in that only early production runs of the cartridge had the code still intact.

 

I put an Easter Egg in Pac-Man, also. However, there were two versions of the game (there was a mid-production bug fix or something); the first version had it, the second one didn't (I took it out to make room for the change I had to make).

 

This one was more complex (I didn't want anyone stumbling upon it). You had to do something like this (let me see if I remember how to get it to work):

 

(1) Set the high score to 110.

(2) Start a new two-player game.

(3) With player #1, let a ghost catch you while you still have zero points.

(4) With Player #2, go straight right until you hit a wall, and then stay there (you should have 160 points I think).

(5) When a ghost catches you, press and hold the "H" key (or maybe all three: HES).

(You MAY need to be on your 3rd man to do this.)

 

I'm not sure if this is right. Even if it is, if you have the 2nd version of the cartridge it won't work.

 

Let me know if you try it and if it works.

 

ref.: http://www.videogamehouse.net/pacman.html

[Asmusr]

There is an Easter egg in the cartridge version of Flying Shark: If you press SKYWAY it will open the Skyway game. If you press EVIGTLIV you will get infinite lives.