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Commodore - Back In The Hardware Biz At Last?
Aphrika writes "Commodore is back in the hardware business [via current owners Tulip Computers] and this time they're taking on... Apple? Due for release in August are three MP3 players; the eVic, fPet and mPet. The eVic is a 20GB (hence the name) hard drive-based player, while the mPet and fPet are closer to the Muvo/iRiver styled flash players. They'll also be hoping you pay a visit to the Commodore World Music Store once in a while to stock up on tunes..." We also recently mentioned Commodore's 'TV Game' and ROM-store projects over at Slashdot Games.
I was a C=64 owner and fan back in their day which was my youth. Ironically today I'm a Linux zealot and Mac lover and go no where without my iPod.
I'm torn. I feel ashamed because of it. Bastards.
The fPet is a music CARRIER..
That reads like "Standard USB thumbdrive" to me, definitely not a player. I'd still get one because of the logo.
this is of course a marketing ploy to draw on the vintage name of commodore, and might i say a damn good one; if i didnt have an ipod i'd buy from them right away!
/(o^_^o)\
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
But will it have 64 kilobytes of RAM?
It's not Commodore, it's just the name.
It's like if I started calling my garage Digital Equipment Corporation and started selling pet rocks, it doesn't have anything to do with a VAX.
there server is hosted on one of their mp3 players....
This makes about as much sense to me as using the GE brand name to sell fresh carrots.
And how in the world does the name eVic imply 20GB of storage? Is it something in another language (like vic means 20), or was the poster meaning that the eVic was supposed to compete with the iPod based on similarities in the way they are capitalized and the lengths of the name?
None of this makes any sense. They should sell C64s today for hobbiesests and nostalgia. They could be very tiny, still use a TV, be tons of fun. Or make another hobbiest platform. But... MP3 players? Like the market needs more MP3 players.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Does that mean we'll get iTunes for C64s now?
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
I wonder if the server is also a Commodore 64, slashdotted after 3 comments!
And all your base are belong to us, Slashdot editors!
But on topic, I think this is great! Nothing quite like reviving an old computer brand name to rekindle the embers that we thought were long dead. I foresee that Atari will be back with their own portable media player; then we'll see the iAmiga, followed by the eAtari, followed by Apple's own iPod-GS, and then even IBM will join the fray with a portable player called the iPC-jr, complete with cooling fan and proprietary bus that won't take anyone else's add-on harddrive.
Heck, I might even get big hair and a skinny tie, too!
I find this really sad. Those products look terrible, and re-using the old commodore brands (Vic, PET) just makes it that much more sad. Though, it's not *that* sad, because Commodore stuff was never really that good (the Amiga had its moments though).
They need to fire their copywriter ASAP, that's for sure:
With this USB 2.0 data&music carrier you can easily extend your pc, notebook or mac with an extra storage harddisk.
PC, notebook, or Mac? What if I have a Mac Notebook do I have to order two? Is it really a hard disk?
The stick can be used for copying, store and move data...
The English can be used for speak and write words!
Exclusive Commodore design!
Yes, we used both red *and* blue plastic on this bad boy! Ka-ching!
you can enjoy listening hours and hours to all your favorite songs with just one battery!
Wow, just one battery! Folks, portable music doesn't get any better than this. Hell, even my car works with just one battery!
The player is including a neck cord,
It's including a neck cord with what? Its tax forms?
Just connect the camera to the docking, drag the made photos to the storage device and you can make new photos again!
Hey, I hope nobody finds my maid photos.. my wife will kill me. I better not connect the camera to the docking as they suggest. And besides, when my memory card fills up, I do what any smart person does! I buy a new camera to hold more pictures!
Beware the docking..
... a new venture from Jack Tramiel, assuming he's still alive, than someone who just bought or co-opted the Commodore names.
Tramiel was a master, a guy who could read the market in real time and act quickly and ruthlessly. He was Commodore.
The eVic is a 20GB (hence the name) hard drive-based player...
Um, am I missing something here? How does the name eVic in any way imply 20GB of space???
Do not read this sig.
They bought the Commodore name some years ago and have just now revived it for an unrelated line of hardware.
So this isn't really Commodore -- why should anyone care?
I want a handheld C64 system. No, not a Game Boy Advance emulating a C64. An actual handheld C64 gaming system. Maybe with a little keyboard a la the Zaurus. And I want it under $100.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Will it be able to play old C64 games as a bonus, and if not who is going to hack it so it can.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
This one was /.'ed on the first reply!
Maybe they should host their site on one of these newfangled 933Mhz C64's
-- In Soviet Russia, radio listens to YOU!
About Commodore International B.V.
Commodore International B.V. is a daughter company of Tulip Computers. The CommodoreWorld concept is developed in cooperation with a number licensee-partners amongst others Yeahronimo N.V. and Ironstone Partners Ltd. Through this joint effort Tulip Computers and its partners will strengthen their power to act and will limit the financial risks connected to the development and production of new products considerably. In addition the introduction of new products and /or services will be much quicker.
About Ironstone
Ironstone Partners Ltd is a commercial vehicle created and funded by a number of individuals with a combined experience of over 100 years in the global games and media industries. Ironstone has offices in both the United Kingdom and Canada. Ironstone focus itself on projects in the worldwide games- and multimedia industry.
Commodore is a very strong brand with worldwide recognition introducing a solution what will bridge the consumer's eGap. An eGap is the entertainment Gap in the life of a consumer...
Seems possible that some new people bought the rights to use the commodore name.
And why is this corporate info written in Engrish?
I'm really surprised that they're introducing something like this, so late in the game. Sure, the market for digital music players may be growing fast, but there are a lot of others in this market, too.
There doesn't seem to be any indication of price, but I think they're going to have a hard time grabbing any kind of market share at all unless these things are cheaper than air... since the feature list for the eVic [what kind of name is that, anyway?? short for Victrola?] looks fairly standard, they're going to have to compete mostly on price.
One potentially useful feature would be the recording capabilities, assuming the interface allows live monitoring of levels. The specs mention bitrates for "music" and "voice" recording, but with a 20GB hard drive in there, it would seem reasonable to have the option to record uncompressed as well.
...music like this and specifically these, of which, of course, the format is the SID :D
Although you'd need something like this to play them.
And, just because I thought it interesting, apparently, these are the best ever C64 game tunes:
* Monty on the Run
* R-type
* One Man and His Droid
* Spellbound
* Ocean Loader v3.0
* After the War
* Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
* Kinetix
* Auf Wiedersehen Monty
* Bionic Commando
On a possibly unrelated note, I loved my Commodore 64 so of course I clicked on the link for "C64 DTV". This crashed my Mozilla. Since the people who hacked on old commodores are probably more likely to use Mozilla than IE, this worries me.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
There should be a requirement that websites wanting to incorporate the word "World" in their name be able withstand (at the very least) a late-evening Slashdotting.
The way their current bandwith tolerance looks, iTunes-level traffic would not only crash their server, but also burn down the office it's kept in.Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
The mp3 player market is now a commodity market, which means the focus is of user friendliness and style, not features. There is precious little to choose between the various horizontally-opposed players; what sets the iPod apart is its style and its user interface. Your average consumer isn't going to care about the name Commodore. They will want to know whether the thing works and looks better than an iPod.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
NO!!! If this is true, you didn't have to tell me! I was better off not knowing. Damn Slashdot.
Get a Slashdot-proof web site.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
Wow.. I have an ipod.. .but for nostalia purposes alone, I'd use the Pet - back in early public school, monochromo monitors and all, I remember pets. We had two pets. Tape drives... and Games. I'd stay in from recess and develop my video game addiction on these things... Buying a pet will be like paying tribute to my first teacher in the school of geek.
Lord forgive me for jumping to the defense of a computer that's been dead nearly 20 years. But somebody's gotta answer this.
I forget what Apple IIe's cost around 1985, but they were well over a grand; actually I think close to two grand...unreachable if you were a high school student mowing lawns. On the other hand, you could get a Commodore for $200, and a disk drive for another $200, plug it up to a TV and you were set.
Additionally, the graphics and especially the sound were much better on the C64 than the Apple IIe. The Commodore had a SID chip, which was polyphonic (I think) and offered four different kinds of sound envelopes. You could even tweak the ADSR...all this on a computer that was released in, what, 1983? The Apples and their tinny speaker sure couldn't do that, not without some expensive add on sound card anyway.
I remember a friend who lived down the block who had an Apple used to always be furious that the same games looked and sounded so much better on my cheap computer than his expensive one.
I think for the time, Commodore made amazing hardware and practically gave it away relative to what others were charging. Really odd to see them dissed over something like this.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Commodore is a single entity under law. As a corporation, or more literally, as an "embodiment", it can sue and be sued, hold property and so on as a single legal entity.
In other words, stop using the plural. It's just wrong. Commodore is not the Borg.
Just the latest example of brand necrophilia.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I'm curious if these are even being made by Tulip, or if they're just placing the Commodore brand on some cheap Taiwanese imports.
And if Commodor beats out Apple, then good for them.
I suggest you read Slashdot
I think the name Napster actually has a negative effect on them, because people go to get more free music and figure out they have to pay. "Hey, this is bullshit!!"
iTunes on the other hand never was a place to get free music, so it doesn't have that negative vibe.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
God No
Its just not fair...
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Search your feellings.. You know it to be true!
"The Wright brothers were the first to fly with a heavier-than-air machine, but boy did they have a lousy plane"
Why should you feel ashamed by hooking up again with a C-64? As lite as Linux has gotten, certainly you can find at least one flavor to satisfy your taste?
I mean, come on, I remember when the TRaSh-80 was around and used a tape recorder for persisting data or TI-99/4A which you could be paid for $0.50 in its final days. It was selling for $49.50 at K-Mart and there was a $50 rebate from Texas Instruments.
All of this is nicer unless you want to "adopt a mainframe" (someone begs & pleads for someone to come get a mainframe and give it a good home (usually basement or garage) before it's towed away. I think the CFO would not find the sharp spike in the electric bill very funny when she sees it, providing it doesn't blow something on the way to the house first.
I'm guessing it would be in the neighborhood of contest to see whose houses stand the greatest chance of being seen from Jupiter. (In a recent year, one of the houses said their December bill was $5kUS more than average.
So did the Apple, if you remember. In fact, it could be said that Apple's devotion to Microsoft BASIC is the reason we have Windows today.
The basic premise is this: in exchange for the rights to license AppleBASIC from Microsoft, some pinhead (who had been tasked with the deal because Jobs didn't think the Apple II had a future) gave the software company full rights to the Macintosh look and feel. Viola! Windows, all nice and legal -- and basically for free.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Sad indeed, so it looks by all accounts its using something from windows media player. and what looks like some thinly veiled OEM mp3 players. There seems to be a total lack of technical info on their 'music store', I suppose its now the current fad to throw up a web music store and sell some players and thru a brand name you bought at bankruptcy auction in order to generate some capital.
Am I the only one that sees this as cynically as the rebirth of Atari?
I think the most ironic part is that you need WMP (with optional Commodore skin) to play your purchase from the Commodore music store. I wonder if they have the Amiga version ready yet?
While Microsoft got the rights to the look and feel legally, they didn't get the rights to the security, functionality, and sheer usability. Basically, they got the rights to make crap look pretty.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
"At Last"...like we've all been waiting ;)
Advice: on VPS providers
The VIC name in VIC-20 actually referred to the GRAPHICS chip inside the machine! The graphics chip in the Vic-20 was the VIC-1, and the Commodore 64 had the VIC-II graphics chip!
So why did they call this the e-VIC when it is a SOUND device? It just makes no sense.
The e-SID, maybe.... but not the e-VIC.
There already is a hobbyist Commodore out there called the Commodore-1, and it's got nothing to do with Tulip.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Apple sells something that only costs 100 dollars?! Where do I sign??
Not more than you need, just more than you want
it's just the little rubber feet for an iBook, don't get too excited ;)
If they used one of those Via micro-ITX boards in a modern version of a C64 (built-in keyboard, big damn-heavy external power supply, and CardBus), and sold it w/ TV out for ~$250, then we'd be celebrating the return of Commodore!
Make it w/ 64 MB for history's sake, and have a 128 MB version <grin>.
The difference is this time around, that the iPod is controlling a lot more features than Walkmans of the earlier time - AND has patents around the manner of control, so that no-one else can quite duplicate the ease of use. Instead they have to come up with something better... which has yet to happen after many, many $$ have been poured into the attempt!!
I'm not sure how I feel about this aspect of patents, but you have to admit it gives the iPod some legs.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What amazes me stayed at 1MHz, and was able to sell machines. The Apple I, released in 1976, was a 1MHz machine. The Apple II debuted in 1977, at 1MHz. The Apple II+ (my first computer, may God rest its soul) in '79, at 1MHz. The Apple IIe in '83, at 1MHz. The Apple IIc in '84, 1MHz. The Apple IIe Enhanced, at, you guessed it, 1MHz. That computer wasn't discontinued 'till 1993, for crying out loud.
Mind you, the Apple IIc+, Apple IIGS, and Macintosh were introduced during that timeframe at higher clock rates, but still, for 17 years, they sold a machine at the same speed. What the hell happened to Moore's Law?
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
The C64 blows away your 8088 with a dumb terminal CRT. What could you DO with that thing? Use Wordstar and print on your dot matrix printer?
The C64 was an incredible little machine. Yup, only 64K of memory, and you could only really use 32K of it. It was only 0.98Mhz. And people did amazing things with it. Full color graphics, three channel synthesizer (which people are still using in audio gear; long live the SID!) and easy connectivity to things like joysticks, modems, and even mice. You know, there's a reason Commodore sold millions of them.
Take a look at some of the C64 demos that folks STILL MAKE at www.scene.org (check out the past few assembly archives, and other parties,) and watch the video of some guy doing a live DJ set with a C64 (assembly 03).. then tell me the C64 is a Plastic K-Mart computer. Show me an Apple II demo or even a PC jr demo. Oh wait, there aren't any, because they weren't good enough to do anything except play Oregon Trail with the beeper speakers. 'BEEEEP. You win.' yay.
So do yourself a favor. Go download the VICE emulator, and then download some C64 demos, or even some of the wonderful games you can find at www.c64.org. Maybe you can see what you missed all those years, looking at your monochrome screen and listening to your computer beep at you.
It's not always about K's and Mhz. Thought people would have learned that by now.
Shit, even the TI99-4a was better then the early IBM PC's.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Getting nostalgic in my older years I found this site with a bunch of commodore commericals:
m me rcials.htm
http://www.commodorebillboard.de/Commercials/Co
But the one they're missing is the one with that jingle 'I'm playing games with my 64!'
The reason I want that one is my friend was actually in that commerical and it would be cool to see it again.
As a long devout Commodore user, who had made his way through multiple C64s, and a huge array of Amigas, I find it almost criminal to view this new site. What next, are they going to release an "A-a-a-a-a-a-amiga"? (in the style of the ebay scam Powerbook thing). Not only is the grammar on that site shockingly bad, but the only thing on there that has ANY resemblence to the Commodore brand is a crappy joystick with 30 games that no-one would want to play. Where's Wizball? Where's The Last Ninja?
So, basically, they are attempting to wipe out all of Commodore's history post-C64, and jumping straight to MP3. Why? Because they don't have the rights to the Amiga (thank god). Want to see what's happening with that little flagship? Go here - a darn sight more interesting than that little bandwagon of naffness.
I find it really depressing when some company buys a legacy name (such as Infrogrames did with Atari) and begins peddling merchanidise using that name, hoping for the retro-cool aura surrounding it to bring it sales.
I do agree that no-one has seemingly really tried to do "better" interface-wise - but that's because of an odd blindness that almost everyone seems to have that "better" IS more features! Even many Slashdot readers seem to think the iPod is all about fashion without realization that without the interface it has it probably would be lost in the crowd by now.
That just adds to my point tha the iPod has a lot longer legs than the Walkman. First a company has to realize what makes it great - then the hard work begins on actually making something better! I'm not so follish as to believe the iPod is the realization of the ultimate music player interface, but I do have to wonder how long it will be before someone bests them, given that Apple is also working on the same problem at the same time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you spell that word wrong again, I'll express my anger with violins.
I loved my C64 back in the day (even wrote some games for it back in the day (scroll all the way down)). I also did some 3D stuff on the Amiga 4000 with the video toaster. There really was a lot of fun to be had on those machines.
But it kind of makes my skin crawl that a group of completely unrelated people are marketing completely unrelated stuff under the commodore name. I don't know exactly why it bothers me, but it does. Maybe because it's such a blatant attempt at manipulation?
I don't know. But I sure loved the machines and software back in the day.
Cheers.
An mp3 player with a little 320x240 screen running C64 in a chip. And a rom with say 64meg of c-64 games (ie all of em) would sure rock!!! Especially if it plays SID files too.
Sure those games look crap on a big tv/monitor, but on a 1inch screen they wouldnt look that bad and be actually very playable still (assuming you map the right joystick ports to the buttons)
The WinCE based c64 emulator was slow-assed, and discontinued (any new ports out there?)
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I don't see Ogg Vorbis mentioned in the specs, so no.
Player Drive w/20GB 1.8"HDD, 1200mA Chargeable Nicole-Lithium Battery
Nicole Lithium, hmmmm...
if it's really white with red hair, I'm sold.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
You are right: Commodore is just an office furniture builder from the 1950s. It is MOS Technologies who made the C64, and it's Amiga Inc. that made the Amiga.
From C='s site: "In 1976 Commodore borrowed three million dollars from Canadian financier Irving Gould and purchased MOS Technologies, an American manufacturer of semi-conductors." and "In 1985 Commodore bought Amiga Inc. and the company was renamed Commodore-Amiga."
Commdore has never been much more than a name. (No flamebait intended.)
64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE
READY.
PLAY
SYNTAX ERROR
READY.
PLAY *.MP3
SYNTAX ERROR
READY.
LOAD *,8,1
The story I heard is that Commodore paid a one-time fee to use Microsoft Basic (Version 2.0) essentially forever with no further payments to Microsoft. This was very early in the development of the industry and Bill got what he thought was big bucks for the transaction. Turns out that Commodore got a huge bargain compared to what Microsoft was later able to charge everybody else (on a per computer sold basis). That was a hunk of the reason computers like the Vic-20 and the Commodore 64 could be considerably cheaper than other computers of the era. Unfortunately it also made it difficult for Commodore to come up with improved versions of Basic without giving up that cost advantage. Bottom line: Jack Tramiel (then head of Commodore) was one of the few people in the computer industry to outsnooker Bill Gates on a business deal, and Vic-20/Commodore 64 owners used Microsoft Basic while contributing essentially nothing to the Microsoft empire.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/pearse.html Read up .. I think he definitely deserves a mention whenever history of early flight is brought up.
Microsoft is releasing their own MP3 player. The basic case design may be familiar to iPod users but Microsoft has put their own spin on the controls and display.
You can see it here
http://rspress.home.comcast.net/Winpod.jpg
Well, not exactly true. Actually, not true at all. First off, Apple traded a few million dollars in stock for the right to bring their programmers -- already well versed in graphical user interfaces, having done work on them in college -- to the Xerox PARC, where he saw a prototype system with NO relation to the Star. In fact, this system didn't even have a file management UI. Apple invented that, and it was Xerox who stole quite a bit of the UI that eventually showed up on the Star, thanks to the close ties between Apple and Xerox. Besides the concept of visual file management, Apple also invented the concept of icons that WERE things and could have actions performed on them...in the Xerox model, icons DID things, like physical buttons. Windowing existed solely to permit multiple command lines.
Apple "won" the Xerox case because what Xerox was doing -- moving a cursor around on a screen and manipulate windows and buttons -- they didn't invent, anyway. It had been done in colleges for years.
Apple vs. Microsoft, on the other hand, was a big deal. Apple HAD invented something new. They HAD created a new interface. But, in hopes of getting Microsoft as an application developer for their new OS, they accidentally licensed them core technologies and were vague enough to infer that they'd licensed the whole system. A more vitriolic and pro-mac argument can be found here.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
almost everyone had MS BASIC on their 8 bit system, even Radio Shack and Atari.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
You need to be reading your Apple II History, not just Folklore's Mac history.
The relevant parts of how Applesoft BASIC came to the Apple II:
Back in 1975 and 1976, Microsoft was producing BASIC interpreters for nearly every microprocessor that was produced, in hopes of licensing or selling their BASIC to those who built a computer around that chip. In mid-1976, Microsoft's first employee, Marc McDonald, was given the job of creating a version of BASIC that would run on the then-new 6502 microprocessor, even though there not yet any computers that used that processor. They became aware of Steve Wozniak's efforts in designing his 6502 computer (the Apple-1), and one of Microsoft's programmers called Steve Jobs to see if he would be interested in a BASIC language for this computer. Jobs told him that they already had a BASIC (remember that Wozniak had been writing BASIC interpreters before he even had a computer on which to run them), and if they needed a better one, they could "do it themselves over the weekend".
Even without a potential customer for this product, McDonald worked on this BASIC, using a modified 6800 microprocessor simulator (the 6800 had an instruction set that was similar to the 6502). For several months Microsoft had their 6502 BASIC sitting on a shelf, unwanted and unused. But by October 1976 they finally had a contract to put this interpreter into the new Commodore PET computer that was being designed. This would ultimately become the first time that BASIC was included with a computer built into the ROM, rather than being loaded from a paper tape, disk, or cassette. However, the contract Microsoft had with Commodore was no good to them at that time, as far as income was concerned; it stipulated that they would not be paid until some time in 1977, when the computer was to be finished and ready to ship. With income and cash reserves running dangerously low, Microsoft was given a reprieve by none other than Apple Computer.[12]
Apple was receiving increasing numbers of requests by users of the Apple II for a floating point BASIC. Integer BASIC (which Wozniak had also at one time called "Game BASIC") worked well for many purposes, and a skilled programmer could even make use of the floating point routines that were included in the ROM of Integer BASIC.[15] However, the average Apple II user was not satisfied with Integer BASIC, especially as it made them unable to easily implement business software (where the number to the right of the decimal point is as important as the one to left). Wozniak tried to make modifications to his Integer BASIC to make use of the floating point routines, but at that time he was also hard at work on designing the Disk II interface card, and his efforts on creating a floating point BASIC fell further and further behind. Consequently, Apple's management decided to go back to Microsoft and license the 6502 floating point BASIC that had been offered to them in 1976.
In August 1977, Apple made a $10,500 payment to Microsoft for the first half of a flat-fee license that they were able to negiotate. Typically, Microsoft would license its BASIC on a royalty basis; they would be paid a set fee for every copy of BASIC that went out the door -- in this case, with every computer that was sold. The fact that Microsoft was willing to concede and let Apple license their 6502 BASIC on a flat-fee basis is a reflection of the financial straits that Microsoft was under.[13] The version Apple licensed was almost identical to the MITS extended BASIC that Microsoft had previously written for the Altair 8800.[4],[5] At Apple, Randy Wigginton was assigned the job of incorporating into Microsoft's BASIC the graphics commands that were unique to the Apple II.
And, how they kept from getting bent over by Microsoft:
A significant part of the story of Applesoft and Apple Computer occurred in March of 1985. At this time, Apple was still struggling to get the new Macinto
There was an easter egg in the Apple //c, too, you know...
//c. You can't tell whether it's Revision 0 or Revision 1, as the only difference in 1 is that a modem bug is fixed.
Since these first IIc's had nothing emulated in slot 5, the firmware authors immortalized themselves by making a "ghost" peripheral appear to be present in that slot. Entering this Applesoft program:
]100 IN# 5: INPUT A$: PRINT A$
and running it would print the names of the authors. (They used a decoding scheme to extract the names, character by character, so a simple ASCII scan of the ROM would not show their little trick). This "feature" had to be removed in later revisions of the IIc ROM, because an actual disk device was added then to slot 5. [4], [5]
You can actually use this to ID a
Also, the IIGS had an easter egg, where you'd actually get audio of the developers.
A feature that was added to the ROM 03 firmware that was entirely fun, instead of functional, was accessed by a specific key-sequence. If the computer was booted with no disk in the drive, a message that said "Check startup device" appeared, with an apple symbol sliding back and forth. At that point, if the user pressed the keys "Ctrl", "Open Apple", "Option", and "N" simultaneously, the digitized voices of the Apple IIGS design team could be heard shouting "Apple II!" Also, the names of those people would be displayed on the screen. If running GS/OS System 5.0 or greater, the user would have to hold down the "Option" and "Shift" keys, then pull down the "About" menu in the Finder. It would then say "About the System". Using the mouse to click on that title would cause the names to be displayed and the audio message to be heard.