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Belfiore’s Binary Shirt:
When Windows 10 Easter Eggs Meet Geek Joy

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If you watched the Microsoft Build conference as closely as I did, you probably caught Joe Belfiore on stage wearing a Windows logo shirt… made entirely of 1s and 0s. Not just a fashion flex. This was a classic Microsoft wink to the developer crowd and a tiny puzzle hiding in plain sight. Naturally, the community went full Sherlock, grabbed screenshots, and started decoding. And yes—there were real messages baked into that matrix.

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How the Puzzle Worked (and why nerds like me grinned)

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The shirt’s pixels weren’t random noise. They were binary values that, when grouped into bytes and converted to ASCII, spelled out cheeky easter-egg phrases. This nods to the Windows 10 story we heard at Build. Think about references you’d expect. Plenty of insider-ish winks to the Windows Insider community and Build itself. It was a love letter to the people who read hex dumps for breakfast and compile code before coffee. Guilty as charged.

If you’ve never decoded one of these before, the trick is simple but satisfying. Capture the bit pattern, split it into 8-bit chunks (e.g., 01001000 = 72). Map each byte to its ASCII character (“H”), and watch the phrase materialize. It’s like opening a Mystery Box from the keynote—one byte at a time.

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Why this tiny shirt easter egg mattered to me

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Windows 10 is more than a version bump. It is Microsoft’s “one platform” moment—PC, tablet, phone, even IoT—pulling together under one UX and app model. Build put that ambition on stage. Continuum promised fluid transitions between form factors. Cortana moved from novelty to real assistant. Universal Windows Platform signaled a simpler, more powerful developer path. HoloLens hinted at where computing could go next. Embedding messages in binary wasn’t just a gag. It mirrored the core theme of Windows 10: delight the devs, bring them inside the story, and reward curiosity.

For those of us who live in the binaries as much as the UI, the shirt said: “We see you.” In a year when Windows 10 was converging devices and experiences, a playful nod to the folks who turn 1s and 0s into products was right on brand.

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Culture, community, and a new Windows decade

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This is why I love the Microsoft developer culture at its best. It mixes rigorous engineering with a sense of play. You can announce major platform shifts—and still sneak in a puzzle that only a subset will decode. That subset happens to be the same group shipping the code, filing the feedback, and building the next wave of apps. Windows was evolving fast, Insider builds were landing frequently, and Build felt like a handshake between Redmond and the people writing the future.

If you missed the decode threads, the short version is simple: yes, there were messages; yes, they referenced the Windows 10 era; and yes, the community cracked them—because of course we did. That’s the point. We’re here for the bits and the delight.

The first message is:

There are 10 types of people in the world

This referenced back to the binary code where 10 means two. So it means there are two types of people in this world. Those who understands Binary, and those who don’t.

The second Message is:

Windows 10, because 7 8 9

Where you need to speak it out loud to understand. Say “seven ate nine”. Because Windows 10 comes right after Windows 8 and there is no Windows 9.

The other two messages are straight forward

Congrats on being one of the first.

Windows Insiders help us develop the future. Talk to us @ Windows

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My Final thought

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Sometimes the smallest details tell you the most about where a platform is headed. Today, Windows 10 promised coherence, momentum, and a developer-first heartbeat. That binary shirt? A tiny, joyful proof that the heartbeat was strong.

Stay clever. Stay curious. Stay a little nerdy.
Your Mr. Microsoft,
Uwe Zabel

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🚀 Curious how hidden messages, Windows 10, and developer culture intersect? Follow my journey on Mr. Microsoft’s thoughts—where cloud, AI, and business strategy converge.
Or ping me directly—because building the future works better as a team.