A new Easter Egg was just discovered in Windows 1.0, an operating system that’s 37 years old. Discovered by tinkerer Lucas Brooks, the Easer Egg would have been impossible to uncover at the time of Windows 1.0’s release due to the way it was encrypted.

As explained by Lucas Brooks, the Easter Egg shows a list of credits for most (if not all) members of the Windows team. These developers aren’t credited for their roles, though plenty of familiar names are included, such as Gabe Newell (of Valve fame) and Steve Ballmer (everybody’s favorite hype man).

Spent the entire day today reverse engineering early Windows binaries to hunt for Easter eggs. Here is a list of the Easter eggs in various builds of Windows 1.0 – 3.0 and the keystrokes required to trigger them. https://t.co/ecqLN1NoDg. Try them yourself! pic.twitter.com/lr5Cfd5XLu

— Lucas Brooks (@mswin_bat) March 19, 2022

Microsoft encrypted this Easter Egg at the end of the “Smiley Face” bitmap file, and from a technical standpoint, it would be impossible to find when Windows 1.0 was released. Lucas Brooks could only access it by modifying binaries and pulling other tricks—we’re not sure if Microsoft intended to leave this Easter Egg in Windows, by the way.

Previously, Windows fans believed that these sorts of Easter Eggs didn’t appear until Windows 3.0. That iteration of Windows included a credits Easter Egg and several references to the Microsoft Bear, which was the mascot for the Windows 3.1 development team.

Source: Lucas Brooks via WinFuture