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It took 33 years to find Easter eggs in the Gumball game for Apple II

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Today, the computer Apple II in the store can not buy, and most of the games for him to play can only be in the emulator. Twitter user under the nickname 4a.m. made a hack DRM-defense of the game Gumball. For him, this is a common occupation. This game was his 683 hacked game for Apple II. Randomly 4a.m. guessed a secret with which no one was yet familiar.

Steve Jobs wanted a computer in every home. Apple tried to make the system as simple as possible for ordinary users. In 1977, after a successful experiment with the first model, the company released the Apple II . Apple's first serial computer had an integrated keyboard, color graphics, sound, a plastic case and eight expansion slots. In total, up to six million copies were produced. Almost forty years have passed since that moment, but the community of fans of this system still exists - since 1989 KansasFest has been gathering in Kansas, where for five days fans discuss old motherboards, keyboards, monitors, learn to work and program on old systems and find new ways to use them.

Thanks to the popularity of Apple II, hundreds of games have been made for it. Engineer Robert A. Cook , founder of Freebase and Metaweb, released Gumball in 1983. It is necessary to build a career in it, starting with the master and receiving the posts of supervisor, manager and vice president of the chewing gum factory. The process boils down to catching the cud that passes through the maze into a container that matches its color. Below in the video - gameplay.
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4a.m. over the past few years, I hacked the DRM protection of 683 Apple II games and uploaded them to the Internet Archive. You can call him a pirate, but only because of his enthusiasm for these games there is a chance to play - these games are no longer sold, and you can play only on old computers. On breaking Gumball protection at 4a.m. and his qkumba colleagues took twice as long as the most difficult defense before. Motherboard Journalist 4a.m. in personal messages said that all this thanks to Roland Gustaffson - the legendary DRM specialist for Apple II.

DRM hacking has not completed the work - 4a.m. managed to find easter eggs. On some site he found the first part of the puzzle - information about the messages on the screen after the end of each level. To see the messages, you need to press ctrl + z during the splash screen:
Level 1: RBJRY JSYRR
Level 2: VRJJRY ZIAR
Level 3: ESRB
Level 4: FIG YRJMYR

You can decipher the meaning of these characters using an online tool like this . The letters RBJRY JSYRR turn into several phrases:

Of these, you need to choose the most likely one taking into account the context. This will be Enter Three. 4a.m. deciphered the remaining combinations and received the following combination:

It remains only to find the code. The player found that by pressing Ctrl-Z again while displaying the encrypted message, another hint appears - DOUBLE HELIX. Now it became clear that to search for Easter eggs you need to enter a three-letter code during the "retirement" in the game, and the code hint - "Double Helix". 4a.m. entered the DNA code at the right time and received a message from the creators of the game. It had ZODWARE code for another game from Broderbund developers.

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At the time of the description of the found easter egg, no one (probably) has ever seen it. In any case, the creator of the game, Robert A. Cook, is sure of this, congratulating 4 a.m on his find with the words “Great job! I thought it would take a thousand years, but you managed in just 33 years. ” When asked what game the ZODWARE code is in, Cook could not answer, but he promised to find a person who can remember this.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/395189/

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