Amiga hardware and software
Source: Raymond Chen
You have to be running KickStart 1.2 (33.166 I think, I can't remember if they were all there in the 33.180 release).
On the Amiga (NB), press and hold the following keys:
LeftShift, LeftAlt, RightShift, RightAlt
Now press one of the 10 function keys. (Keep those four keys down!)
Each function key produces a different message.
To get the rude message, insert a disk into the internal drive.
(Still holding down all those keys?) Now eject it.
"We built the Amiga..."
and when you pushed the floppy back in:
"...and Commodore f**ked it up!"
Source: Jim Shaffer
Incidentally, I just re-checked my version of KickStart 1.2. The "We made
the Amiga, they..." sequence is replaced by "The Amiga - Born a Champion,
Still a Champion."
Now another Amiga hidden message (also in KS1.2).
Go into preferences, on the first screen, there are pictures of two mice,
one to set the double-click speed and one to set the mouse speed. Click
on each of the buttons on the mice 5 time in the following order.
1234 1234 1234 1234 1234
/------ /------
| 1 2 | | 3 4 |
| | | |
| | | |
+------+ +------+
Now select printer setup, scroll all the way up the list of possible
printers, and then all the way down.
Then the title bar of the preferences window changes to something like
(it been a long time since I tried this):
Congratulations =RJ=
Apparently just as the guys finished the preferences tool, RJ Michel, one of the Amiga designers became a father (everybody say aaahh!).
Commodore 128
Source: Norman St. John Polevaulter
And of course, going WAY back, there is the credits and anti-war message
You could coax out of a Commodore 128 by typing:
SYS 32800,123,45,6
in BASIC
Commodore Business Machines 1581 Disk Drive
Source: Eric Pass
error = $ff3f
org $3000
lda #$79
jmp error
which gives you an author's credit. Substitute #$7a for #$79 to get a dedication to one of the authors' wives.
The two messages are listed in the 1581 dos reference guide as:
$79: Software by David Siracusa. Hardware by Greg Berlin
$7a: Dedicated to my wife Lisa
Here is a BASIC program written by Russell Prater to illustrate the messages.
10 open15,9,15:n$="m-w":m$=n$
20 fori=1to8:reada:n$=n$+chr$(a):next
30 fori=1to8:reada:m$=m$+chr$(a):next
40 print#15,n$:print#15,"m-e"chr$(0)chr$(3)
50 fori=0to1:get#15,a$:i=st:printa$;:next
60 print#15,m$:print#15,"m-e"chr$(0)chr$(3)
70 fori=0to1:get#15,a$:i=st:printa$;:next
80 data 0,3,5,169,121,76,63,255
90 data 0,3,5,169,122,76,63,255
Information derived from messages on the C_B_M Echo by Russell Prater and David Schmoll
AmigaDOS-1.2
Source: Joe Smith
With an Amiga running AmigaDOS-1.2, hold down the left-shift + left-alt + right-shift + right-alt and then press and release F1, then F2, etc.
This will display in the title bar the nicknames of the designers.
Commodore
Source: Jim Shaffer
Dale Luck, formerly of the Amiga development team, tells a story about hacking the system software when the custom chips were still on breadboards. To prevent blowing out the hardware, he put an anti-static mat on the floor and convinced everyone to go barefoot.
They would also dance during late-night compiler runs to prevent falling asleep. One of the hidden messages in version 1.2 credits "Moral Support:
Joe Pillow and the Dancing Fools."
Amiga 1.2 O/S
Source: Peter da Silva
An undocumented feature of the Amiga 1.2 O/S. If you brought up the mouse preferences and clicked all four mouse buttons in the picture, then clicked an invisible gadget next to the date, the window title changed to a cute message about the programmer's SO.