Quote:TRUE FACT
The secret message in the System file

Nobody doubts that Apple's renowned system-software programmers have a sense of humor.  But here's how you can prove it to yourself.

Launch Microsoft Word.  While pressing the Shift key, choose Open from the File menu.  Navigate to your System Folder and open the System file itself. 

If you're using System 6, there's a copyright notice  and only one other intelligible sentence:  "Help!  Help!  We're being held prisoner in a system software factory!"

The joke was good enough to live on.  If you open the System file for System 7.0 through 7.1 in this manner, the sentence says, "Help!  Help!  We're still being held prisoner in a system software factory!"

In all the System 7 versions, you get the names of the 13 Blue Meanies -- the guys who formed Apple's System 7 bug-shooting and quality-control SWAT team. 

Interestingly, if you try this trick in System 7.5, you can scroll down into the document for an extremely interesting set of additional credits.  [We'd give almost anything to know precisely what services were provided by Domestic Partner Amy, the Underpaid Process Dude, or The Flake.] 

Ajax,Jul 25 2004, 10:37 AM Wrote:Just kinda nifty to see the antecedents of this WoW easter egg; someone must be an old-school MacOS user.  To put this in perspective, the book I quoted is published in 1996.  Macs haven't used System 7 software for...almost a decade now?  (Been too long.)  This trick won't work in OSX or System 9 (which is today's Classic)--the System file is unreadable. 

Ruvanal,Jul 26 2004, 12:37 AM Wrote:Actually I have seen variations on this message before there were home computers much less apple computers and the later Macs.  So this is a rather old style of a joke that well predates what you are referring to.