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> I can’t remember why the lightning bolt was yellow. With hindsight that seems the strangest thing about it; cyan would have been a more obvious choice for ele
by Sharlin 2y ago
> I can’t remember why the lightning bolt was yellow. With hindsight that seems the strangest thing about it; cyan would have been a more obvious choice for electricity. Possibly it was just to contrast more with the blue screens of the computers.
I had to stop and consider this, because it seemed to me that yellow was "obviously" the correct color. And indeed a few image searches confirmed this: a yellow lightning bolt is by far the most universal symbol for electricity, along with the standard black-on-yellow danger icon. I'm not sure how far back in history that representation goes, or what its origins are, but I think it's been used ubiquitously in comics and cartoons for a long time.
- metalliqaz 2y agothis also caught my attention. the author also questions why the screens are blue I think he has just forgotten that in the late 90s, these color choices were entirely obvious and followed the Windows design precedent, which is why he probably didn't think much about it at the time
- camtarn 2y agoIndeed. For example, Windows 95's My Computer icon might have had a teal background to match the default desktop background, but the screen of the peer computer in the Network Neighborhood icon was blue.
- autoexec 2y agoI'd accuse windows of knowingly setting expectations by choosing a blue screen as the default, but they were using it before the BSOD was even a thing
- jagged-chisel 2y agoDOS-based editors used a blue background often: WordPerfect, QuickC…
- sfllaw 2y agoDo you remember Microsoft Word’s “Jerry Pournelle mode”? He convinced them to ship a feature that forced Word to render white text on a blue background, just like his favourite word processor, so that he would switch. I think the last version with this feature was Word 2003.
- lproven 2y agoI used to use that occasionally! It was Pournelle that inspired it? Really?
- gerdesj 2y agoSimon Tathum is British and I have never knowingly seen a lightning bolt coloured cyan hereabouts. Our "Danger of death" signs are black on yellow (1) To be fair an image search for lightning does look decidedly cyan on royal, with purple, red and more options. (1) https://www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/nearelectric.htm#signs https://www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/nearelectric.htm#signs
- msla 2y agoIt's like the symbol for rain being a "raindrop" that's shaped like a teardrop: Bulbous bottom, with a top that tapers to a point, which is manifestly not the shape rain takes in the air. https://gpm.nasa.gov/education/articles/shape-of-a-raindrop https://gpm.nasa.gov/education/articles/shape-of-a-raindrop Iconography is a language, and terms in a language aren't usually exact representations of what they stand for.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- btilly 2y agoNo, but it is the shape of a drop that is about to drip. Which is a lot easier for people to see in detail than a falling raindrop.
- t0mas88 2y agoPerfectly documented warning stickers for everything is such a British thing. Together with fused plugs and on/off switches for every socket. As a foreigner who lived in London for a few years I believe the UK leads the world in self-deprecation. No country complains about itself more while being so absurdly well-organized.
- Twirrim 2y agoI think, in part, because we don't have the same level of experience with how things are elsewhere.
- 2y ago
- munificent 2y agoIn particular, WinAmp at the time used a yellow lightning bolt in its icon, which was on damn near every Windows machine in the 90s.
- ahonhn 2y agoWinAmp's yellow lightning icon is still sitting happily in my Windows icon tray right this very moment. Pageant is in there too with its cute little spy-hat :-)
- opello 2y agoAlso vintage of the era is ZOC[1] which was a dialer and terminal emulator whose "O" used a yellow lightning bolt. [1] https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/ZOC https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/ZOC (The Wikipedia page for the application does not have the same splash screen that the above link does and the above is certainly the version I remember.)
- voussoir 2y agoIt's funny, I was just thinking about this recently. I noticed that a lot of electric cars or PHEVs use cyan accents to signal that they are EVs, yet I also think yellow is the more obvious color for electricity.
- globular-toast 2y agoActually I think yellow is only appropriate if it's a lightning bolt. Otherwise it wouldn't make me think of electricity. Cyan hints is more "cyber" like Tron or something.
- 0xEF 2y agoThis is pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if the yellow lightning bolt stayed yellow in the PuTTY icon (among other uses) because the symbol was likely just borrowed from safety warnings. Yellow has been preferred for a long time since it's considered a high-vis color and would typically stand out on industrial machinery housing where you might want to clearly warn someone of shock hazard with a pictograph so the warning transcends language. The lightning bolt stayed yellow as a result of "that's how we've always done it, I guess" thinking
- philsnow 2y agoIn “Avatar: the Last Airbender”, there’s one-ish characters who can bend lightning, and to the credit of the animators, it is indeed depicted as cyan colored
- MisterTea 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_electricity > The Neo-Latin adjective electricus, originally meaning 'of amber' Seems like electricity and amber have been tied together for a long time. This rules out the idea it comes from safety signs. I also dont buy the safety sign origin as the graphics are always in black and the background is yellow.