Easter Eggs in Appliances?

nneul asks: "A few weeks ago I bought and installed a new Kenmore Elite dishwasher from Sears. A couple days ago, it stopped working, all the buttons on the panel would just blink when pushed, and pressing "start" would run this weird mini-wash cycle. Disconnecting the power to the unit had no effect. Turns out (after having Sears come out for a warrantee repair on it), through some sequence of keypresses on the panel, I had enabled "store demo mode", which required a completely undocumented set of keypresses to turn off. (Even the sears guy had to call to get the code). My question - has anyone else ever seen other appliance "easter eggs" like this? In this case, it was pretty annoying, but I wonder what other sort of interesting secret key sequences there are on ordinary home appliances/tvs/etc." Makes you wonder. If you start pushing random buttons on your microwave, don't be surprised if it suddenly starts up with a rousing rendition of Devo's "Whip It!"

Comments

Nothing new

[Em Ellel]

"Easter eggs" like this outside PC's are a common thing. I mean these started on console games. But I do not thing this even qualifies as an "easter egg". Demo modes are common in many appliances. They are usually well documented thogh.

My Sony TV has a "service tunning mode" (it's amaizing how much you can mess with the unit) My TiVo has some hidden controlls, as well as a special combo that sends in close captioning names of the people who worked on it. My car stereo has a demo mode that comes the first time you power the unit up. Pretty much anything controlled by any sort of soft/firm-ware of any sort can have these "tunable" parameters and other hidden functions.

I used to own an old RCA TV. This particular model had no remote, but almost identical one with a few extra features did. Universal remotes did not work. So I opened it up. Sure enough it had IR recievers covered up in black tape. You never know.

-Em

Re:Nothing new

[unitron]

You wouldn't happen to be able to post the model number of that RCA, would you? Did you remove the tape and get the set to respond to commands from the remote?

Easter egg site

[polymath69]

There are non-computer Easter eggs tabulated here, covering everything from Timex watches to chocolate dispensing machines, from oscilloscopes to Furbys. The site's a pain to navigate, but there's good stuff to be had.

Fur Elise

[mini me]

This might be considered an easter egg. Even though it does serve a purpose, it didn't have to play what it does so in that way it is an easter egg. While it still is a computer, it is in hardware, and not software.

Re:Fur Elise

[mrsmalkav]

As far as I can remember for back in the days when I worked on Macs, they did the same thing. They would play a tune to let you know if the RAM was bad or if some check failed on boot. I remember listening to my computer do RAM checks years ago. I doubt that that's an easter egg.

Though Fur Elise and It's a Small World are pretty friggin odd.

DVD players have a useful "hidden" feature

[jsveiga]

Most (all?) DVD players (sold in Brazil) have a "secret" programming sequence to allow you to change the region of operation.

Unlike lots of PC DVD players, there's no limit for number of changes.

The sequences are not in the user's manual, of course, but any salesperson will have a notebook with all the codes, and will happily let you take note of he one you need - if you buy from him.

Is it the same everywhere? This makes the "region" system redundant...

Two more

[epsalon]

My dishwasher (TELSA) has a documented 'test mode' that lets you operate each feature by itself (by pressing some key 5 times repeatedly). I tried pressing other keys 5 times repeatedly and got to a strange unknown mode that maybe for special tuning/demo.
My VCR has a store-demo mode that is actually documented in the manual in a page titled "for salespersons only" or something like that.

Elevators!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some elevators (especially in tall hotels) can be kicked into "turbo mode" if you hold down "door close" and the floor number at the same time.

My VCR crashes

[crow]

It's not a feature; it's a bug.

My Sony VCR from a few years ago will crash when playing back Farscape. It works fine with everything else I've tried to record, and it records Farscape fine, but when playing it back, at least once per episode (regardless of record speed), the VCR will crash. The power goes off and the clock is reset.

So in this case, there apparently is some special signal that the VCR is noting on the tape that is, for some reason, a part of Farscape.

Weird.

Re:My VCR crashes

[morcheeba]

I've seen VCRs do this when a sensor fails or something feels "out of whack". For example, the takeup reel says its moving, but the unroll reel isn't moving (or is moving at the wrong speed). Rather than tearing up your tape, it just shuts down.

Funny that it's just Farscape. Are you using the same tape? same section of tape? Recording other shows of equal time on comparable positions of other same-brand,length, and speed tapes w/o problem?

It could be a tape tension problem - maybe it's a rewind/play sequence that mucks things up.

Last but not least, try a shorter tape. These are usually thicker and less prone to stretching.

Re:My VCR crashes

[crow]

Yes, it is the same with different tapes, and it is only Farscape. I even tried switching between EP and SP for recording.

Now it's not an issue, because we don't use a VCR for time-shifting now that we have ReplayTV.

Re:My VCR crashes

[unitron]

Please email me so that I can provide you with the URL of a site frequented by TV techs so that you can post this problem and see what theories they might have as to the cause. I'd very much like to see what they have to say. I prefer not to post the URL here because the last thing the site needs is a bunch of adolescent trolls from Slashdot.

X-Ray Machines

[blintz]

If any of you have repaired xray machines, you will know that there are a lot of relays involved. When you start the machine up you will hear the relays click when they engage. Apparently one xray company had the relays switch on and off at startup to play a song. I guess they used that as a diagnostic tool as well. It has been said that some of the older xray repair techs can go through a functions check and narrow down what's wrong just be listening for the sound of the relays clicking.

Re:X-Ray Machines

[joshwa]

Speaking of relays playing a song, lots of Fleet ATMs in Boston and NY (I've not seem them elsewhere) are engineered so that when you get cash, the little money-moving belts play the Woody Woodpecker laugh before they spit out your money. It's always good for a laugh...

Re:X-Ray Machines

[michael_cain]

Long ago (just knowing this says something about my age) telephone crossbar switching systems were controlled by relay logic. I met several central office craft people who could identify that something was wrong with a ten-foot rack full of relays by listening to the rhythm of clicks as a call was processed...

Industrial Laser Easter Egg

[Chris Y Taylor]

I had (ok, my boss had... but it might as well have been mine) a 1 kiloWatt industrial laser that had an interesting easter egg.

It had 32k of memory in its onboard computer for storing CNC programs. (did I mention it was an old industrial laser?) The same company sold a model that had 64k of memory, for more money. But the laser manufacturer apparently decided it would be cheaper to only have one assembly line building the lasers, so all of them were actually made with 64k and the 32k versions must have been "dumbed down" with a software patch.

I discoved a very complex set of secret codes that would "transform" my 32k industrial laser into the 64k version. Very handy. The codes were probably used to allow the 32k machines to be "upgraded" to 64k by a factory service rep; for a few thousand dollars. (and you thought memory for your PC was expensive)

DVD Players

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I work, we have to keep discs secured in DVD players in a very public place. Thankfully, most Onkyo and Sony DVD players can be set to lock the disc tray. As far as demo modes go, most mini systems have them built in, and are disabled by setting the clock.

I've also run into a few RCA TV sets with a small problem in their firmware. Almost all GE/RCA/Proscan tv sets have a built in hour-meter. It's supposed to be available only to servicepeople. A few got out with the meter available to the end user, which caused no end of trouble when consumers got home, stumbled into the menu and discovered just how many hours a display model TV gets. (6 months straight in this case!)

Back around christmas we saw a Phillips mini system demo CD that actually took complete control of our display unit (And no, it wasn't modified. This was from regular stock.) Most buttons were disabled, and the CD could turn various features on and off on the unit. We ended up sending the unit back defective because we couldn't get the disc back out.

Industrial-grade easter egg

[rainer_d]

I've heard a story where a large, CNC-type
machine with a LC-display had a special
"exhibition-mode".

Putting the machine in this mode would halt normal operations and you could play a "snake"-type
game on the display.

When the workers discovered this, the late-night-shifts tended to halt production for
some time just to play the game...;-)

And you thought, only crypto-backdoors were dangerous !

Appliances

[Anonymous Coward]

Most if not all appliances have special codes. They are used for testing a debug at the factory and during development of the appliance. Also they make for handy store demos. Most of the time only the technicians and development staff know the correct key sequences to enter one of the special modes.

Re:Appliances

[squeegee-me]

I know that the wahser and dryers for laudry mats, dorms, and Apt. complexes by Maytage, use an infared reciever for diagnotstics. These are the ones that have three or four buttons on them and that's it, you know, Bright colors, colors, whites, and delicates... But I once saw a Maytage repair man with a 5"x12"x2" 'remote' that had a LCD screen. When he was all done, he went through the line of driers, and gave a free load to each machine to verify they were working. Now, I'm just wondering how to find the codes needed and put them in my palm pilot with a little program to avoid the $2 per small load my Apt. complex is taking from me.

Service Mode for Zenith TVs

[RackinFrackin]

Some of the older, early 90's model Zenith TVs have a service mode. Be forewarned: You can screw your TV up with this mode if you don't know what you're doing. To enter the mode, hold down the menu button until the menu disappears. Then press 9, 8, 7, 6, enter. You can also enter the mode by pressing three buttons on the tv at the same time, but I'm not sure what they are.

Again, I don't advise anyone to do this to good TV. It may be possible to damage your TV, and you can get it into some modes that are difficult to get out of.

British Telecom phone system.

[shippo]

A good number of years ago, when telephones were still all pulse-dial, there was a number you could dial that would cause the telephone to ring when the receiver was replaced. Obviously a simple test mechanism for installation engineers.

The feature dissappeared from our exchange a good few years before the exchange was replaced with a digital one.

Re:British Telecom phone system.

[godders]

yeah yeah, it was 175 (or 174 depends on which exchange you are at), still works in some places... that was lots of fun at school (the payphone was an extension of a phone in the office) but try dialling this: 1707070, it goes to an engineers menu (complete with the annoyingly plummy BT-voice talking comically quickly!) and gives you several options... if you select 'FastTest' and replace the handset, it will ring you back and tell you how far away you are in Km from the nearest exchange! the ADSL engineer told me that (because somehow we got ADSL installed and we're over 7Km away, I love BT) also, after making lots of tea for the NTL CaTV engineer, he showed me the engineers menu on my cable digibox (take out the smartcardthing, unplug the box, plug back in and hold the up and down buttons on the front, then put the card back in when the blue screen appears) there is loads of info in there, the IP address of your CaTV box, the amount of credit that NTL will give you.... plus loads more....

Yeah...

[cr0sh]

2600 had an article a couple of years back about finding an easter egg in an exercise machine of some sort, and the author wondered the same thing.

Incidentally, I've been thinking about "hacking" out an easter egg on my Sanyo microwave - it has a very interesting display, with a ton of modes - I would be surprised if there _wasn't_ an easter egg hidden in it somewhere.

On my Cox Digital receiver (a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2000 box), you can go into a special "diagnostic" mode on the box by pressing the diamond and target keys together after turning it on - basically, I believe you have to turn it on, then press and hold the target button (to the left of the arrow pad on the box), then hit the diamond button at the same time (in the middle of the arrow pad) - at least, I think that is the way - I don't have the box in front of me.

Gives a lot of info about the box...