My Virtual Reading Room

First Easter Egg

The very first secret little programmer's joke was in Atari's Adventure in 1979, which let you walk through a wall to see the writer's name. Awesome.  The first game to become infamous for its Easter egg was SimCopter (1996), where a prankster programmer filled the streets with kissing men in Speedos on his birthday.  And assorted other dates, as it turned out.  His career lasted about five seconds after it was discovered.

(PC Gamer magazine, March 2010 issue)