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Comment by a_p | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft used to include easter eggs in their programs, but stopped in 2002 as part of the "trusted computer initiative". [1] Excel 97 had a hidden flight simulator, Word 97 had a hidden pinball game, Access 97 and 00 had a magic 8 ball simulator. Office 4.3/95/97 had a hidden Doom-like gamed called "The Hall of Tortured Souls". There is also a car driving game in Excel 2000.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_eggs_in_Microsoft_produ...

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> Office 4.3/95/97 had a hidden Doom-like gamed called "The Hall of Tortured Souls".

Wouldn't that be Access?

MS Access is actually a very very useful piece of kit; it's a surprisingly good database considering its limitations, and it's infinitely better than keeping your data with your business logic in an excel spreadsheet.

... Why people hate on it I'll never know.

VBA doesn't handle files larger than 2gb, which is one of the reasons people don't recommend using Excel and Access for your business. There are some ways to deal with the 2gb limit[1], but it is better to use other software.

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/189981

Revision control aside, MS Access is not that bad for what it does.

However... I've seen management people write a couple of VB functions, think they magically turned into "Developers" (with a Capital D), and start barking random orders to people doing totally unrelated things with totally unrelated tools.

The actual danger is psychological, much like when the new iPhone user on the block magically turns into a "Design Expert" (Caps!) and starts hunting innocent bystanders...

No. The "tortured souls" are the programmers that worked on Excel[1]. Look at this page [2] for videos of the game in action.

[1] http://everything2.com/title/The+Hall+of+Tortured+Souls

[2] http://www.eeggs.com/items/719.html

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