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A History of Icons
John H. Doe writes "The GUIdebook has a great page illustrating the history of icons. Of course, they have the Lisa/Mac/OS X paths, but there's the Windows progressions, along with entries for NeXT, OS/2, BeOS, and yes, Linux. Would you call it progress?"
This is a chart of icons from various interfaces. Clicking on GUI names, section names or icons themselves will lead to the appropriate page: Options Show GUI families: Lisa Office System Mac OS NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody Windows OS/2 GEOS/GeoWorks Apple II Amiga OS RISC OS BeOS Red Hat Linux QNX Solaris
Don't forget the Biblical Icons. That Golden Calf must have some pretty great raytracing and high polys to be worshipped so blatantly at the risk of utter destruction.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Well, when you consider all of the things that icons do, they certain are worth the money you spend on the icon editor.
Have you ever clicked on an icon? You click on an icon and, bammo, there's a big spread sheet or email program on your screen or something. Icon editors must be complex and expensive to accomplish that. Seeing all of the amazing things icons do, it is the one software expense that the guys in purchasing will have no problem approving.
On an unrelated note, being a manager of a large software development team, I had been wondering why you techies like Dilbert so much. I have a big informative staff meeting. Afterwards, the techies gather around to pick the Dilbert that matches the meeting. I don't get it.
Q. Once upon a time a mouse became trapped in a Russian cathedral; how did he escape?
A. He clicked on an icon and opened a window.
(I can't claim credit for that one...)
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.