In the olden days of computing, some programs, including Excel, had hidden features called Easter eggs, so here’s a quiz for you.
Quick Quiz: Which version of Excel had a hidden Flight Simulator game as its Easter egg?
- a) Excel 5.0
- b) Excel 95
- c) Excel 97
- d) Excel 2000
Answer: You can find the answer at the end of this article.
Fun Fact : Microsoft stopped adding Easter Eggs to its products in 2002, and you can see the full list of hidden goodies in this Wikipedia Easter Egg article.
Flight Simulator Video
Here’s a a choppy recording of that built-in flight simulator game, posted on the Tom.K YouTube channel.
- The video starts with Tom opening Excel 97.
- As a bonus, you get to see Clippy, ready to help with any problems!
- In Excel, to launch the Easter egg, Tom enters the secret address in the Go To window (X97:L97), and clicks the OK button
- Next, on the Excel toolbar, Tom clicks the Chart button, to start the Flight Simulator.
When Is Easter?
If you’d like to plan for Easter celebrations in the upcoming years, you can use the Excel Easter Calculation file on my Contextures site, to find the Easter date for any year.
The file has Excel formulas, and user defined functions (UDFs), with details on how they work. Thanks to Excel MVP, Jerry Latham, who contributed the tutorial and Excel workbook!
This screen shot shows a sheet in the file, where you can enter a year number, to see the Easter date that year.
Find the Hidden Treasures
If you don’t have any candy Easter eggs, you can use my Excel Treasure Hunt game, to find different kinds of hidden treats, like rabbits and kangaroos!
Here’s a screen shot with the Hoppy Hunt theme selected, and there are 4 other themes to choose from..
Video: Treasure Hunt Game
In this 3-minute video, I show how to play the game, and how it works. There are formulas, conditional formatting, and a data validation drop-down list.
- Get the Excel file on the CODE and CHAR function page, in the download section
Easter Egg Quiz – Correct Answer
Here’s the quiz again, as a reminder:
Quick Quiz: Which version of Excel had a hidden Flight Simulator game as its Easter egg?
- a) Excel 5.0
- b) Excel 95
- c) Excel 97
- d) Excel 2000
Answer: The correct answer is c) Excel 97.
Did you get it right? In the chart below, there’s a summary of the votes on my YouTube channel.
-
- a) 61% – Excel 95
- b) 17% – Excel 97 ← Only 17% got it right!
- c) 15% – Excel 5.0
- d) 8% – Excel 2000
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More Excel Fun and Games
Here are a few fun activities to help keep you entertained!
Excel Games and Easter Eggs
Print Bingo Cards in Excel
Excel Sing Along
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