[Essay] - interview an original contributor to Excel 97's easter egg

[Rezmason]

In December 1999, Y2K was around the corner, Windows and Office were ubiquitous, and their integrity/stability affected practically everyone. That's when the easter egg's authors were written up in The Economist's Christmas issue:

Programmers may work to tight deadlines in sterile corporate settings. But by nature they are a creative, anarchic breed, or at least that is how they see themselves. And self-consciously creative people have always tried to leave their mark.

According to Hank Chien, @jasonallen and @andyverprauskus are the only members of Excel 97's charting team who contributed to the easter egg.

Try and get in touch with one or both of them, and ask the following questions for the essay:

1. When's the last time anyone brought this up with you?
2. How'd you wind up working on Excel 97 and on its charting team?
3. How were the textures, height map and color palette created?
4. How was the easter egg incorporated into Microsoft Excel?
5. Why is this easter egg a flight simulator, with its unique purple landscape?
6. To your knowledge, is this easter egg fully revealed? Or is there any additional hidden behavior in Excel 97?
7. How do you suppose was this easter egg discovered? Or was it sort of leaked?
8. What kind of reaction inside the company did this easter egg receive when its existence was made known?
9. How did this easter egg influence your career afterwards?
10. In 2021, do you feel that there's a place for easter eggs in commercial software?
11. Nowadays do you ever program to express yourself?