MICROSOFT EXCEL 97 FLIGHT SIMULATOR

Directions for finding the simulator

Artist: The Microsoft Excel '97 programming team
Medium: Easter egg in Microsoft Excel
Year: 1997

Microsoft Excel presents the user with a more obviously computational grid than Conway's Game of Life does, but in theory the two are equally powerful. In itself, Excel reconceptualizes and reorganizes computation, shifting the paradigmatic center of the act from computer architecture to mental architecture: it was an early example of the shift toward intuitive computing. But hiding within one particularly popular incarnation of the program is, of all things, a flight simulator. It presents the user with a black sky, blue ground, and glowing horizon. You navigate with your mouse, shifting speed and direction as you skim across the weird, poorly rendered terrain. 

In fact, the space is meant to hold the software's credits. Hiding the credits for a piece of software or some other interesting tidbit behind an obscure key combination is a fairly common practice. Embedding a flight simulator, though, is much less common. The choice makes sense in this case, though. In a program that offers the user a spatial concept of computation but obscures the actual process of that computation, enclosing for the user a navigable hidden space is an acknowledgment of the hidden processes that drive Excel. The programmers seem to be saying, "This is the mysterious world where information is processed for your benefit. Your suspicions of a hidden room, a vast secret space that contains the magic or technology behind your experience, are correct. Here it is!"