Menu.exe commandline easter eggs

The DOS versions of the Twilight menu came with some easter eggs, most notibly the “dRuNk mode” on the first release. Here are some others.

For those who don’t know: Disk Operating System, or DOS, is the command line operating system used before Windows. In most applications you can ask what the program can do using the /? operator, such as: menu.exe /?.

In this case it returned some funny options. Here is an overview:

Game and SVGA options

Using /? the following menu pops up:

screenshot 2014 01 22 012

We use /?! to display the other screen…

screenshot 2014 01 22 013

Not lets check out this game!!

screenshot 2014 01 22 014

Running the command again did not result in a Game. This option has been in the menu until the 9th release, until the DOS menu was abandonned.

Let’s try the SVGA setting:

screenshot 2014 01 22 015

Also not going to work…

After browsing some more we found some more options on menu 8 and 9:

screenshot 2014 01 22 047

Using the /LOW options apperantly does what it’s supposed to. Yet this is barely noticable when having gigabytes of ram to spare.

Credits

So on to the credits:

screenshot 2014 01 22 048

It reads:

Credits for the Twilight Installer:

Programming:

  • KipSateHater (Up to version 2.23)
  • FatMan,
  • Shroomz (later versions)

Design:

  • KipSateHater, FatMan, Shroomz

Graphics:

  • (What graphics? ;)

Thanks to:

  • Twilight Crew Software Department
  • Our families. Waha! *NOT*

After terminating the Twilight Menu, other information appears:

screenshot 2014 01 22 046

It reads:

Twilight Installer terminated.

New stuff (from V2.42 on):

  • Search through descriptions (F3)
  • Automatic virus-scanning (F5)
  • Various Manager (F6), including Search (F2, F4=Again)
  • Read docs usually found in DOCS&NFO (Tab), also while depacking

You know what? There might even something interesting in the Release Info! :)

Conclusion

All of this reinforces the idea that the early Twilights where made mainly for fun.

The strings used in the menu could not just be read using notepad. We found “HackStop 1.12cs (c) by ROSE, Finkenweg 24, D 78658 Zimmern”, this probably means that the executable is packed / zipped or obfuscated. In that case a debugger might provide more information. It did.

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