Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Up, Up, Up, Up

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/8552

by edward • 12 years ago

145 35 12 years ago

help.netflix.com

martin_• 12 years ago

“‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’” - Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson’s biography.

czk• 12 years ago

Heh, it's pretty close to the Konami Code, I wonder if that was the inspiration? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code

Moru• 12 years ago

I was sure this article would be about Gradius but no...

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

Agreed, I was thinking "... and your TV will jump up, flip, and deliver a crushing hammer blow to its opponent!"

Related anecdote, I was trying to explain covert channels to a new engineer as a means of sending a message through something which wasn't really designed to send messages (my goto example was using screen dimming to send code data) but they immediately came back with "Oh like the secret moved on Street Fighter!" Yes, it made me feel old.

jedberg2• 12 years ago

It was. We call it the Konami code internally. :)

gronk• 12 years ago

It is similar to the Sonic 3 code too - 'Up-up-down-down-up-up-up-up'

cleverjake• 12 years ago

A friend of mine worked on the netflix debugging tools for a majority of their players (tvs, blu-ray players, consoles, etc) and there are a number of remote combinations like that inside the players to bring up all sorts of goodies.

spilk• 12 years ago

I'd love a combination to keep Netflix signed in on my Samsung TV. It's something like a 50/50 chance every time I load it that I have to sign in again.

JohnTHaller• 12 years ago

I'd suggest grabbing a dongle. TV-based apps are notoriously buggy overall and rarely updated to fix bugs.

rorydh• 12 years ago

When I saw the title for this post at first, I imagined I was going to enter the sequence on the site and see something crazy happen...

esMazer• 12 years ago

missed opportunity here

jedberg2• 12 years ago

Somewhat related, but have you ever tried entering the konami code on reddit. At least, it used to do something cool.

talles• 12 years ago

HADOUKEN!

Whats a vizio device by the way?

samelawrence• 12 years ago

It's a brand of "smart" TVs.

sosborn• 12 years ago

Vizio is a TV manufacturer. I assume that these instructions are for product line that has Netflix built in.

srhngpr• 12 years ago

http://www.vizio.com/en-ca/tv-overview

elwell• 12 years ago

Not "Up, Up, Up, Up"; "B, A, B, A" of course.

Domenic_S• 12 years ago

bzzt. The Konami code only has one "B, A".

brunnsbe• 12 years ago

Yes, and some games needed "Start" as well in the end.

For a real nostalgic magic code, have a read about Xyzzy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xyzzy_(computing)

brokentone• 12 years ago

I suppose with a limited controller, you need a way to get to less used functions (such as logout) without accidentally triggering it. It's not that annoying of a sequence, compared to something you don't want regularly popping up.

saluki• 12 years ago

The contra code . . . you'll never forget . . .

popularized among North American players in the NES version of Contra, for which it was also dubbed both the "Contra Code" and "30 Lives Code"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code

wldcordeiro• 12 years ago

Very close to the Contra code, not quite though.

polskibus• 12 years ago

My first thought was that it was a sequence for a Mortal Kombat fatality.

incision• 12 years ago

Every time I need to unlock developer settings in a recent Android phone I get a little nostalgic for the codes of old.

If you're of that era you likely also remember...

007 373 5963

...and...

JUSTIN BAILEY

------ ------

sachinag• 12 years ago

A winner is you, my friend.

devindotcom• 12 years ago

ICARUS FIGHTS

MEDUSA ANGELS

easymovet• 12 years ago

IDDQD IDKFA

endgame2• 12 years ago

Ever try typing those into Heretic?

Was Sega not very big in the US in that era? Most of the old gaming references I see online are NES-based (or at least Nintendo), but the first cheat code I learned was Up, Down, Left, Right, A+Start.

endgame2• 12 years ago

I'm also disappointed that cheat codes don't seem to make it into release builds any more. (Or do they? I haven't seriously played anything modern for a while now - I'd love to be proved wrong.)

Retric• 12 years ago

Some companies realized you could charge money for them and thus was born the pay to win version of free to play games.

Consider Contra's 99 lives cheat code vs candy crush's extra lives for cold hard cash.

Though by far the most popular is a version of starcraft's instant build cheat coupled with a persistent RTS game.

As to traditional cheat codes, there more common in RPG's. Skyrim console being a great example of a classic cheat codes.

bdonlan• 12 years ago

There are, in fact, some "cheat codes" in stock android, though. Try entering this in dialer, for instance: ##4636##

menocchio• 12 years ago

Is this the way out of the maze in Colossal Cave Adventure?

27182818284• 12 years ago

I have unfortunately had to use this before seeing this post on a Samsung TV.

I honestly didn't believe the documentation at first. I remember Googling it again and then found someone's post that said, 'No really. That is how you do it."

pasbesoin• 12 years ago

Partially OT: For Roku users (e.g. Netflix app on same), this page describes some hidden controls (bit rate et al.):

http://mkvxstream.blogspot.com/2013/01/secret-roku-troublesh...

I ran across this when my Roku XD (generation 1) started glitching again due to a known issue with its marginal wall-wart transformer.

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Up, Up, Up, Up

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