Engineer Unlocks Hidden Photo in Power Mac ROM After 27 Years
▼ Summary
– Software engineer Doug Brown discovered how to access a hidden photo of the Power Mac G3 development team in the ROM after 27 years of it being inaccessible.
– The method involves formatting a RAM disk with the text “secret ROM image,” which Brown uncovered through reverse engineering.
– Brown found the hidden JPEG and key clues in the ROM using Hex Fiend and Eric Harmon’s Mac ROM template while exploring the G3’s resources.
– The SCSI Manager 4.3 code contained strings that led Brown to realize it checks for a RAM disk named “secret ROM image” to reveal the image.
– To activate the Easter egg, users must enable the RAM Disk, restart, erase it, and type “secret ROM image” in the format dialog.
Discovering a long-lost piece of Apple history, a software engineer has finally revealed how to access a hidden photo buried in the Power Mac G3’s ROM after nearly three decades. The breakthrough came when Doug Brown cracked the code to unlock this digital time capsule, a team photo concealed within the computer’s firmware since 1997.
While the existence of the JPEG image had been known since 2014 thanks to researcher Pierre Dandumont, the method to actually display it remained elusive until now. Brown’s investigation uncovered that the secret lies in creating a RAM disk with the specific label “secret ROM image”, a clue hidden in the machine’s original code.
Using specialized tools including Hex Fiend and Eric Harmon’s Mac ROM template, Brown examined the firmware of the beige Power Mac G3 models. His exploration revealed two critical components: an HPOE resource containing the team photo and a series of cryptic Pascal strings embedded in the SCSI Manager code. These strings, “.Edisk,” “secret ROM image,” and “The Team”, provided the missing puzzle pieces.
The activation process requires precise steps: enabling the RAM Disk through the Memory control panel, restarting the system, then formatting the disk with the exact phrase found in the code. When executed correctly, the system generates a file called “The Team” containing the previously inaccessible image of Apple’s development staff.
Brown first shared his findings in the #mac68k IRC community, where fellow enthusiast Alex quickly verified the method. This discovery not only solves a 27-year-old mystery but also preserves an intriguing artifact from Apple’s engineering history, a digital signature left behind by the team that built these iconic machines. The photo serves as a reminder of the human creativity behind even the most technical aspects of computer development.
(Source: Ars Technica)
