Newly Found 40+ Year-Old VIC-20 Easter Eggs by Commodore Programmer Andy Finkel

[RobertBe]

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhvUWQPYCW0

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
Commodore Los Angeles Super Show - http://www.portcommodore.com/class

[orion70]

From the comments, sounds such a great discovery... But, thirty minutes are too much of a time for me to follow (i have the attention span of a five yo). Could you please summarize for us what's this Easter egg about? TIA

[doug_in_nc]

Ok, here is the 30 s version as I watched the video over the weekend - Commodore didn't want the programmers names credited in their software, so when Andy Finkel wrote for them, he hid the names of the authors so they would show up on the start screen when certain keys were pressed. I don't remember the key combinations needed, but they aren't the same in every game.

The video was about the known Easter eggs, but also looking through the code of all of the other programs known to have been written by Andy Finkel to try to find the credits and which key presses activated them.

[Forbidden64]

If you hit C= Shift and CTRL on the title screen of Omega Race it lists out a title screen with Andy Finkel and his associate after you release the keys. He also pointed out that you can press shift F1(F2) and get extra lives on Omega Race which I didn't know either. The Loan calculator from the 6 pack tapes program also has an easter egg. You Press C= and Shift to get lower case, and then hit F2, it'll display Andy Finkel at the top. Apparently Andy couldn't fit any credits into the Scott Adams Games. Finally, one of the more bizarre ways to fit in an easter egg: Gorf! If you plug in Commodore Paddles specifically, and turn them all the way to the right it'll display the easter egg of all the developers. Apparently that one doesn't work so well with Atari paddles because they don't get down to a low enough value in the via register.

[rhurst]

It was such a thrill to find that one back in the day!

C= Shift and CTRL on the title screen of Omega Race

... just "or" at the end of Omega Fury title screen. I didn't want to make it that complicated!