Easter Eggs In Consumer Electronics?

BBSOD asks: "I spotted this short article in Wednesday's paper. It states that Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) police are going to carry out tests on some models of Nokia phones for what appears to be a built-in speed trap detector. Now this got me thinking, often software writers add Easter eggs to their software so what about designers of consumer electronics? Can my microwave also be used as a personal organizer? Sure it's bulky, but try getting your Palm V to heat last night's special fried rice in under three minutes. So, what extra features have you heard of or seen in electronics devices that the manual didn't exactly feature?" Well, since we've already talked about Easter eggs in software, why not hardware?

Comments

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a certain big brand name microwave oven that has two. If you push the front panel buttons in a particular pattern(Multiple buttons At once) the displaY and keypad become a calculator. Push them another way and a list of all of the people that worked on the project will scroll by...

Obviously, I can'T say which one becAuse that miGht cause some trouble.

Re:Yes

[jdevons]

Very tricky... ;-)

Sounds like inadequate sheilding and filtering

[unitron]

More the result of lack of design than design. Kinda like when a church PA system picks up some "good buddy"'s CB radio.

Re:Sounds like inadequate sheilding and filtering

[unitron]

If police radar is on the "out of band" frequencies the phone is supposed to reject/be filtered-shielded against, then adding the ability to detect that radar would mean added cost and complexity in the design and manufacture of these phones.
If their phones are more expensive than other brands, the company's profitability is at risk and that means the jobs of the designers are at risk.
I don't think you could get all of the designers to agree to risk their careers to put in a radar detector that has about as much range as a megaphone, but since you can make a detector that good with a capacitor and an op-amp, there's probably a semiconductor junction in there somewhere acting as an antenna.

That's assuming that these phones really are doing this in the first place.

HP ScanJets

[andrewb]

Most HP ScanJets (I have a 5P, but I've heard it works on other models as well) can play "Ode to Joy" by moving the scanning head at varying speeds.

1. switch off
2. set SCSI address to 0
3. switch back on while holding down the green scan button

It's a neat trick to play on someone else's scanner!

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Re:HP ScanJets

[andrewb]

Play online Infocom HHGG.

Or even better, play offline and be able to save your games! Download the jar, and use the included .z5 file with any infocom interpreter...

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Re:HP ScanJets

[dmatos]

You wake up. The room is spinning very gently round your head. Or at least it would be if you could see it which you can't.

>Turn on light
>Get up
>get gown

Play online Infocom HHGG.

More info?

[EverCode]

Is there anymore info on the Nokia "feature"?

satans microwave

[AoT]

i had a microwave that would start flashing or scrolling 666 at random times. it was pretty old, but that was the only problem i had with it.

Here's How:

[Kalrand]

press:" *3001#12345# " to enter the dealer mode. turn "field test" on there you go.

Kalrand

-the voice of reason

Hot Palms

[Dannon]

Sure it's bulky but try getting your Palm V to heat last night's special fried rice in under three minutes.

I've read about some overclocked x86s that could do this... Get it into a Palm with wireless internet and GPS, and you'd have a great camping tool!
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Hardware easter eggs

[Baloo Ursidae]

Its not much, and its computer hardware only, but here's a few hardware easter eggs.

TI-92 Calculator

[Raetsel]

Granted, the TI-92 is more computer than consumer electronics device, but there is an egg in there crediting the authors.

There's also a lot of other hardware listed here. Look under "hardware" and "other".

A short list:

• Elevators (get to your floor in express mode!)
• Libertel MN-2 phone (tetris)
• HP ScanJets (music, among other things)
• HP Oscilloscope (credits & games)
• Canon Printers (music)
• LG televisions (tetris)

Look at the site for the complete list, it's not terribly long (but it is fun!)