The hidden artistry in all that circuitry

THE secret is out.

Nobody need ask ``Where's Waldo?'' We know. He's on the MIPS R10000, right where Kevin Kuhn put him when he helped design the SGI microchip.

For decades, chip designers have slipped such doodles among the circuitry that makes our computers go. Daffy Duck. Dilbert. The giant Crayola -- all smaller than a hair -- dropped into open spaces on a chip's surface.

The drawings served no function, though they were clearly art. Harmless. Who'd ever know?

Well, now everyone. But we're all better for it.

Newspapers across the country have reported how a Florida researcher blew the lid off this tiny art scene while photographing microchips through a powerful microscope.

``They're really quite beautiful,'' says Michael Davidson of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee. And he means it.

He was so taken, he enlarged the doodles and posted them on the Web as the Silicon Zoo. In the process, he's given us a chance to share the whimsy and wonder at 30-by-30-micron art. Before Davidson's discovery, a few co-workers saw the images. Then, well . . .

``It gets all covered up,'' says Kuhn, of Silicon Graphics, ``dropped into a system and nobody ever thinks of it again.''

Sad, really. Like leaving Van Gogh's paintings forever in a crate in a closet. But Davidson saved us from that.

``He essentially outed us,'' says Dan Zuras, a Hewlett-Packard chip designer.

No, he's not mad at Davidson. Nobody is. Surprised he found them out maybe. But the designers weren't trying to hide anything. They didn't have to. Doodles, like Zuras' Road Runner character on a multiplier chip, were impossible to see without a microscope.

The hundreds of doodles were just for those in the know. A wink that said, we done good.

``It's kind of cool to know you left a little mark,'' Kuhn says, ``and it's going out into the world.'' It was art for art's sake. No one would ever see it. At least that was the idea.

``To be the subject of an archaeologic discovery while I'm still alive,'' says Zuras, ``is an odd experience, I have to say.''

Odd, but good. Chip doodling's future is uncertain. The canvass is shrinking -- more transistors, less empty space. More design is automated. And now the glare of fame.

``I think I'm up to 14 minutes of my 15 minutes,'' says Kuhn.

OK, maybe not glare.

``Has fame destroyed me?'' Asks Zuras. ``I have yet to appear on some talk show where I have to throw a chair at somebody.''

Not even a very tiny chair.