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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Famous Cheat Code Surfaces in iPhone Puzzle Game

The Contra Code is the most famous video game cheat code ever – Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left Right, B, A. eBattalion, developers of the puzzle game FLIP, have built it in to their iPhone and iPod touch app, allowing savvy players to unlock all the levels in FLIP’s “Puzzle” and “Speed” modes.

Full disclosure: I got off the video game train shortly after it pulled out of the Pong station. I think I was trying to get someone with ID to buy me a beer in the PacMan station, and I turned around and all of a sudden, the train was gone and I just never got back on. I know. That makes me both old and non-conversant with something like 80% of the people on the planet.

But I came across this at Macenstein and I think it seems like something that could maybe be built into more than just one of the AppStore’s thousands of games.

So tell us, Cult of Mac gamers, is FLIP the only iPhone/iPod Touch game that can be unlocked using the legendary Contra Code?

Surely there are other hidden gems and “easter eggs” out there, for Apple-oriented developers are nothing if not whimsical and versed in the historical arcana of game and software lore.

Let us know what you’ve found in comments and we’ll feature the best bits in another post.

This post has been edited to correct the author’s error transcribing details of the Contra Code in the original. Thanks to commenters who pointed it out.

About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer, musician, web designer attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

Email the author | Read more posts by Lonnie Lazar.

5 comments

    it will also work on the Bolt game on the iphone (Bolt (iPhone) – Pressing “up switch”, “up switch”, “down switch”, “down switch”, “left switch”, “right switch”, “left switch”, “right switch”, “BOLT” unlocks a hidden “Party Mode” which causes the bolts to randomly change colors and flash).

    Technically it’s Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A…

    Bolt for the iPhone does have something similar but it’s not really the Contra Code since there is no “B, A” at the end. As far as I know FLIP is the first game that had the Contra Code drawn on a touch screen.

    Lonnie there is an error in your blog, there are actually two “Left, Right” before the “B, A”, as shown in the video and as is in the original Contra Code.

    @Michael, @Dorgo – see? I told you I didn’t know squat about gaming. Thanks for pointing out my error.

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