The detective work paid off, as the emulator produced a black screen with the message: Eventually, a Redditor got the message to work via a Spectrum emulator. The Reddit brigade went down the rabbit hole from there, leading to the discovery of an audio message at the tape’s end that was designed to be fed into the old-school computer. The mix tape opens up with a unique bit of music that a handful of Redditors recognized as the startup music from an ‘80s UK computer called the ZX Spectrum – a computer the band used to create sound effects for the song “Let Down.”

The clue that opened and cracked the case of the secret software was an old nerd jingle. The computer code is found within Radiohead’s deluxe box set edition of OK Computer called “OKNOTOK.” One of its contents is a mix tape made by the band, containing demos and session archives from way back. Instead, Thom Yorke and company managed to sneak in an esoteric easter egg into the box set an old-school computer program that only true PC geeks would have the ability to access and decipher.įortunately for us, there are plenty of true PC geeks that populate the infamous pages of Reddit. Of course, since Radiohead is Radiohead, the band can’t be content with merely re-issuing an expanded album packaged with just demos and outtakes.

While this mark of time is bound to make Gen X’ers that bought the landmark album feel ancient, it’s also a perfect anniversary for a re-issue. Radiohead’s “OK Computer” is 20 years old.

Ok computer radiohead in rainbows