Actually, you can get to the programmer's room in Chrono Trigger through various methods; it's kind of the catch-all ending for various weird ways of ending the game (I've seen it several times, and been disappointed for not getting an original ending for the particular ways I finished the game).
My favorite way of getting the Programmer's Ending was by killing Lavos when he first appeared in the Dark Omen... y'know, the time when Crono was supposed to die, thereby starting that whole period in the game when you're goal is to resuce him. It was very strange to find out Lavos actually could be beaten at that point in the game - granted it requires quite a bit of level-building. At that point I had played back through the game several times using the New Game + feature, so I had all the best equipment and techs.