3 ms·

Although this is great somehow in my opinion this was the best windoze wallpaper It somehow captures my soul, perhaps because i was very young when i saw it h

Although this is great somehow in my opinion this was the best windoze wallpaper It somehow captures my soul, perhaps because i was very young when i saw it https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fm0zhfbiq61v21.png%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D3371c9c68bca464e4939fed3cb4a8b3c32ef5cf6 https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....

sdeyerle 2y ago
If I'm not mistaken, wasn't this actually the installer background screen that got repurposed as an option for a wallpaper?
- MrJagil 2y ago
  The linked post is titled "Background image from the windows 95 setup window" https://www.reddit.com/r/wallpapers/comments/bicyok/background_image_from_the_windows_95_setup_window/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallpapers/comments/bicyok/backgrou...
magic_hamster 2y ago
As already mentioned it was the install setup, and it's my favorite Windows background to date as well. It's actually a 2 bit image with all blue and black, with dithering. It's very comforting in my opinion.
paulmooreparks 2y ago
That Microsoft Natural Elite on the left side of the image is still the only keyboard I use, or will use. I have a stack of four backups in the closet.
edvards 2y ago
Is there a name for this visual style?
- reddalo 2y ago
  I also wonder this. It's a recurring style from '90s software.
- isametry 2y ago
  I don’t have an exact answer either, but based on this particular image, “duotone effect” is definitely a keyword.
- nom 2y ago
  If you refer to the color and not the composition, it's called halftone. Unlike analog halftones, you calculate where to place the dots in a way that minimizes visual error, called dithering.
- lewiscollard 2y ago
  (Disclaimer: no special insights into what Microsoft was doing at the time; I merely lived in the same era.) I'd call it an artifact of only having 16 colours to work with when SETUP boots. Obviously, most machines at the time had more to work with than that, but VGA - which is to say, 16 colors at 640x480 - was the baseline. And remember that Windows 95 could be installed from _floppies_; looking fancy is good, but you don't want to gratuitously use disk space. No multiple versions of the same image for you! Let's take this fancy "Mac with some other random shit on a desk" image from Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/black-and-white-self-balancing-board-AtXt2oLqYns https://unsplash.com/photos/black-and-white-self-balancing-b... Here's what it looks like with various ways of reducing it to 16 colours: https://imgz.org/iC7KufjC.jpg https://imgz.org/iC7KufjC.jpg (I know, the images are small on a modern display! Each square is full-size, because we're VGA.) Top left is the original, obviously. Top right is what happens if you just reduce it to 16 colours; it looks like nothing in particular, and it weighs in at 153K (exported in a modern graphics editor), or more than a tenth of a 3.5" floppy disk. Bottom left is what happens if you do it with dithering; you can make it look like you have more colours than you actually do, but it also weighs 153K. And bottom right is SETUP.BMP. It only uses _two_ colours from the palette ("0, 0, 255" blue and black). That's 1-bit colour which means my SETUP.BMP when exported to an actual BMP only takes up 38.5 kilobytes. So the answer to your question, I suppose, is "use as few colours as possible and don't waste disk space" or "dithering" or "the 90s", but often the technical limitations of a period plus time become an aesthetic.

sdeyerle 2y ago

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't this actually the installer background screen that got repurposed as an option for a wallpaper?

MrJagil 2y ago
The linked post is titled "Background image from the windows 95 setup window" https://www.reddit.com/r/wallpapers/comments/bicyok/background_image_from_the_windows_95_setup_window/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallpapers/comments/bicyok/backgrou...

magic_hamster 2y ago

As already mentioned it was the install setup, and it's my favorite Windows background to date as well. It's actually a 2 bit image with all blue and black, with dithering. It's very comforting in my opinion.

paulmooreparks 2y ago

That Microsoft Natural Elite on the left side of the image is still the only keyboard I use, or will use. I have a stack of four backups in the closet.

edvards 2y ago

Is there a name for this visual style?

reddalo 2y ago
I also wonder this. It's a recurring style from '90s software.
isametry 2y ago
I don’t have an exact answer either, but based on this particular image, “duotone effect” is definitely a keyword.
nom 2y ago
If you refer to the color and not the composition, it's called halftone. Unlike analog halftones, you calculate where to place the dots in a way that minimizes visual error, called dithering.
lewiscollard 2y ago
(Disclaimer: no special insights into what Microsoft was doing at the time; I merely lived in the same era.) I'd call it an artifact of only having 16 colours to work with when SETUP boots. Obviously, most machines at the time had more to work with than that, but VGA - which is to say, 16 colors at 640x480 - was the baseline. And remember that Windows 95 could be installed from _floppies_; looking fancy is good, but you don't want to gratuitously use disk space. No multiple versions of the same image for you! Let's take this fancy "Mac with some other random shit on a desk" image from Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/black-and-white-self-balancing-board-AtXt2oLqYns https://unsplash.com/photos/black-and-white-self-balancing-b... Here's what it looks like with various ways of reducing it to 16 colours: https://imgz.org/iC7KufjC.jpg https://imgz.org/iC7KufjC.jpg (I know, the images are small on a modern display! Each square is full-size, because we're VGA.) Top left is the original, obviously. Top right is what happens if you just reduce it to 16 colours; it looks like nothing in particular, and it weighs in at 153K (exported in a modern graphics editor), or more than a tenth of a 3.5" floppy disk. Bottom left is what happens if you do it with dithering; you can make it look like you have more colours than you actually do, but it also weighs 153K. And bottom right is SETUP.BMP. It only uses _two_ colours from the palette ("0, 0, 255" blue and black). That's 1-bit colour which means my SETUP.BMP when exported to an actual BMP only takes up 38.5 kilobytes. So the answer to your question, I suppose, is "use as few colours as possible and don't waste disk space" or "dithering" or "the 90s", but often the technical limitations of a period plus time become an aesthetic.