"Michael A. Terrell" wrote
Jim Wilkins wrote:
The good one (not completely my idea) was based on an analog noise level
sensor that detected people approaching and flashed REPENT! THE END IS
NEAR!


You could have alternated that with things like 'Duck and cover!'
'Head for the hills!' 'Judgment day is nigh, sinner!' or even something
completely silly like 'Eat at Joe's!'

The nastiest thing I put on screen was nothing; a thousand(?) form feeds
instant messaged to people tying up the VAX with "Empire". Their VT100
screen stayed blank for about ten minutes as the form feeds scrolled
through. They had changed the name of the program to hide it but not the
size. In extreme cases I ran a calculation of pi by Leibniz' tedious formula
until everyone gave up.

I don't know if he invented the ideas, but one programmer there wrote The
Grinch That Eats Programs in which a PacMan sprite wandered around your
screen leaving a trail of blank spaces, and a Tired Monitor routine that
made characters slide to the bottom of your screen. This was in the early
1980's.

jsw