JargonFile/entries/xyzzy.txt

xyzzy

/XYZZY/ , /XYzizee/ , /zizee/ , /ikzizee/ , adj. [from the ADVENT game] The
canonical magic word. This comes from ADVENT , in which the idea is to
explore an underground cave with many rooms and to collect the treasures you
find there. If you type xyzzy at the appropriate time, you can move
instantly between two otherwise distant points. If, therefore, you encounter
some bit of magic , you might remark on this quite succinctly by saying
simply Xyzzy! Ordinarily you can't look at someone else's screen if he has
protected it, but if you type quadruple-bucky-clear the system will let you
do it anyway. Xyzzy! It's traditional for xyzzy to be an Easter egg in games
with text interfaces. Xyzzy has actually been implemented as an undocumented
no-op command on several OSes; in Data General's AOS/VS, for example, it
would typically respond Nothing happens , just as ADVENT did if the magic
was invoked at the wrong spot or before a player had performed the action
that enabled the word. In more recent 32-bit versions, by the way, AOS/VS
responds Twice as much happens. Early versions of the popular minesweeper
game under Microsoft Windows had a cheat mode triggered by the command xyzzy
enter right-shift that turns the top-left pixel of the screen different
colors depending on whether or not the cursor is over a bomb. This feature
temporarily disappeared in Windows 98, but reappeared in Windows 2000. The
following passage from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum,
suggesting a possible pre-ADVENT origin, has recently come to light: Ziz-zy,
zuz-zy, zik! said Dorothy, who was now standing on both feet. This ended the
saying of the charm, and they heard a great chattering and flapping of
wings, as the band of Winged Monkeys flew up to them. The text can be viewed
at Project Gutenberg.