May 7th, 2015
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Hidden message in a T-shirt, it's been done before

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

While everybody is trying to figure out the hidden message in Joe Belfiore’s T-shirt,¹ I figure I’d give you an easier puzzle.

Here is the pattern of 0’s and 1’s printed on the T-shirt handed given out at the Windows 8 kick-off meeting. Because you don’t have a project until you have a T-shirt. 

              001 01101110 0110
         01110011 00100000 01010111
      10 01100100 01101111 01110111 011
    0000 01001100 01101001 01110110 01100
   00000 01001001 01101110 01110100 011001
  110010 01101110           1110100 0100010
 1111000 0111000             101111 0111001
 1100101 011100               01001 0110111
  100100 0110111             110011 0010000
  010111 01101001           1100100 011011
   10111 01110011 00     0 01001100 01101
     110 01100101 00100000 01001001 011
       0 01100101 01110010 01101110 0
           000101 01111000 011100
       1 01110010 01100101 0111001001
    1001 01101110 01100100 01101111 0111
  110011 00100000 01    11 01101001 011011
 1100100 0110111            1110011 0010000
01001100 01101                00101 00100000
01001001 0110                  0101 01110010
01101110 0110                  0101 01111000
01110000 01101                10010 01100101
0111001001010111             101110 01100100
 1101111 01110111 01110011 00100000 0101011
  101001 01101110 01100100 01101111 011101
    0011 00100000 01001100 01101001 0111
       1 00100000 01001001 01101110 0
            10010 01101110 0110

The actual shirt clipped many of the digits to make the shape come out smoother. I’ve filled in the partial digits.

There are at least two typos in the shirt.

It didn’t take a room full of developers long to decode the message.

Click here to reveal the answer.

The digits are merely the binary encoding of ASCII characters. 

              001 01101110 0110              // Windo
         01110011 00100000 01010111          // ws Wi
      10 01100100 01101111 01110111 011      // ndows
    0000 01001100 01101001 01110110 01100    //  Live
   00000 01001001 01101110 01110100 011001   //  Inte
  110010 01101110           1110100 0100010  // rnetE
 1111000 0111000             101111 0111001  // xplor
 1100101 011100               01001 0110111  // er In
  100100 0110111             110011 0010000  // dows
  010111 01101001           1100100 011011   // Windo
   10111 01110011 00     0 01001100 01101    // ws Li
     110 01100101 00100000 01001001 011      // ve In
       0 01100101 01110010 01101110 0        // terne
           000101 01111000 011100            // tExpl
       1 01110010 01100101 0111001001        // orer  typo
    1001 01101110 01100100 01101111 0111     // indow
  110011 00100000 01    11 01101001 011011   // s Win
 1100100 0110111            1110011 0010000  // dows
01001100 01101                00101 00100000 // Live
01001001 0110                  0101 01110010 // Inter
01101110 0110                  0101 01111000 // netEx
01110000 01101                10010 01100101 // plore
0111001001010111             101110 01100100 // r[?nd typo
 1101111 01110111 01110011 00100000 0101011  // ows L
  101001 01101110 01100100 01101111 011101   // indow
    0011 00100000 01001100 01101001 0111     // s Liv
       1 00100000 01001001 01101110 0        // e Int
            10010 01101110 0110              // ernet

¹ Looks like they figured it out.

Category
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Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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