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How Famous OS Logos Got Started

Posted by samzenpus on from the in-the-beginning dept.

Shane O'Neill writes "Ronald McDonald and the NBC Peacock may get more TV air time, but today's operating systems have cool logos, too. Google, Apple, Microsoft and the Linux crowd crafted mascots ranging from cute lizards to circles of life. In this slideshow, we look at the origins of the logos and look ahead to their future."

103 comments

  1. girls and cups by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    are awesome content for a logo

  2. ugh by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

    Why red, green, blue and yellow? They are all primary colors, and contrast well to the human eye.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:ugh by bohemian72 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      My thoughts exactly.

      One of these colors is not like the others. One of these colors just doesn't belong . . . .

      --
      The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
    2. Re:ugh by religious+freak · · Score: 1

      I'm glad I'm not the only one that cringed in reading that...

      --
      If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
    3. Re:ugh by lowlymarine · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, if we want to get technical it is true that red, green, blue, and yellow are all primary colors; RGB being the primary colors of light and yellow being a primary pigment. In all fairness to the writers of TFA, they don't state primary colors of what.

    4. Re:ugh by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      A common slip. When you go to think of base colors like that, it's easy to thing RGB while actually trying to come up with RBY. I don't see why it's so far fetched that one might accidentally toss green in there, and that someone else might not catch it.

      Now, as far as that being the reason they contrast well to the eye... I call bullshit. They are all as separated as they can be from each other on the spectrum, so naturally there is high contrast between them.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    5. Re:ugh by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Really? Which one? Are we talking primary colors of light or pigment? If I were to "Select Distinct Colors From ColorsOfLight Union Select Distinct Colors From ColorsOfPigment"... what would the resulting set be?

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    6. Re:ugh by Cal27 · · Score: 0

      The set of all colors.

    7. Re:ugh by Toonol · · Score: 2, Informative

      Whatever you get, you wouldn't get four colors.

    8. Re:ugh by SlashWombat · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you want to get really technical, Red, Green and Blue are the additive synthesis primary colours, and Yellow, Cyan and Magenta are the subtractive synthesis primary colours.

    9. Re:ugh by innocent_white_lamb · · Score: 3, Funny

      cmyk?

      --
      If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
    10. Re:ugh by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      I dunno what the technical reason is if any but afaict most people perceive yellow and green as distinct colors while cyan and magenta are percieved as variants of blue and red.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    11. Re:ugh by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      I think that may be to the way we physically see the colors. Check out these links:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell

      Much of that information is over my head, but it gives me the impression that we are wired to see green separately, which may be related to yellow been considered subordinate.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    12. Re:ugh by Carewolf · · Score: 1

      Whatever you get, you wouldn't get four colors.

      Why not? The human eye has four colour receptors that may cross eachother a little, but is essentially: Red, Green, Blue and Rods (low light). Though the later is
      mostly used when it is too dark to use the other three.

    13. Re:ugh by azav · · Score: 1

      Green is NOT a primary color.

      --
      - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
    14. Re:ugh by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1

      who the fuck moded you insightful!
      red, green, blue + red,blue,yellow = red,red,blue,blue,green,yellow
      if you select only the distinct colors (as GP did), you get red,blue,green,yellow
      if you count that list, you get FOUR colors

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    15. Re:ugh by moose_hp · · Score: 1

      I'm colorblind you insensitive clod.

      For me, green (#00FF00) and yellow (#FFFF00) look pretty much the same on CRT displays, while Magenta and Red do look different enough for a different name, I agree on Cyan and Blue tho

      --
      DON'T PANIC.
    16. Re:ugh by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      Ditto. Who cares about anything that includes red and green, when you can't SEE red and green? Phhht. For the most part, I don't give a damn about colors. Give me a dark skin, with high contrast, and I'm happy!

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  3. Red Hat logo by XenonCJ · · Score: 1

    TFA says the origins of the Red Hat logo are unknown, I always thought it was from the game Civilization?

    1. Re:Red Hat logo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I'd always thought the Red Hat was a reference to De Bono's "Six Thinking Hats". The IT industry also talks about "black hats" (hackers, appropriately enough the black thinking hat is "judgement"/"identifying flaws") and "white hats" (security folk, although the white thinking hat is actually "neutrality" rather than "vigilantism" or whatever, I assume it's intended as the polar opposite of a "black hat").

      PS. Why is the idle section so screwed up? The comment box is narrower than it is tall (and it's only 10 lines tall).

    2. Re:Red Hat logo by Stupendoussteve · · Score: 1

      Red Hat and the logo were inspired by Mark Ewing's hat, as he was known to wear a red fedora around the Carnegie Mellon campus.

      Source

    3. Re:Red Hat logo by Cheesetrap · · Score: 1

      I thought it was Carmen Sandiego's hat, because using that tricky hackery Linux stuff makes you a sneaky bugger!

  4. Woefully incomplete by moosesocks · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What about Amiga? Commodore? The Mac 'smile'? MS-DOS?

    The article's pretty scant on details even for the logos they did describe. Commodore might not be around any more, but their logo remains iconic.

    --
    -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    1. Re:Woefully incomplete by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I would have liked to have seen an evolution from the logos of yesteryear to today.

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    2. Re:Woefully incomplete by Mainframes+ROCK! · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They could have gone back even further, VM/370 had a logo starting in about 1975 ... http://kristof.willen.be/images/vm.png and later VM/SP (1983) ... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/VM_mascot_-_teddy_bear.png

    3. Re:Woefully incomplete by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You would probably see a similar evolution as you see in TV Network logos or logos of other brands. Following the Zeitgeist, they would adapt to what's "cool" or "hip" (or whatever other word is currently hip or cool to describe hip or cool...). In the 50s, they'd have been serious and business-y, in the 60s they would have been down to earth, in the 70s flashy, in the 80s neon-flashy, in the 90s they'd have started spinning and today they'd be "we're too cool for a logo, so we just got this piece of designer art bullcrap".

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Woefully incomplete by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 1

      Don't forget crappy sports teams looking to substitute new snazzy logos for wins

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    5. Re:Woefully incomplete by bbtom · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yep, and they also miss out the BSD Daemon, and Hexley the Platypus - which beat the corporate Windows and OS X logos any day. And lacking BSD, they miss the story of the two Texans reacting to the BSD daemon T-shirt, one of the best stories in BSD history.

      --
      catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
    6. Re:Woefully incomplete by houghi · · Score: 1

      http://www.andrewkeir.com/images/news/coke-vs-pepsi-logo-design.gif or something like it

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    7. Re:Woefully incomplete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Remember, this is the Internet Age, where incomplete, under-researched, poorly written, fluffy snippets of stuff everyone in the target audience already knows is passed off as news.
      Modern America: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Entertainment.

    8. Re:Woefully incomplete by paxcoder · · Score: 1

      Agreed, and uninteresting, not deserving space at Slashdot. Lacks also Debian (which is an interesting story, unlike these). The only actual things I've learned is that Microsoft's logo's colors are very "visible", and some RedHat guy wore a red lacrose hat. Fail.

    9. Re:Woefully incomplete by sskagent · · Score: 1

      I particularly enjoy the FedEx logo. The first time I noticed the hidden arrow in the middle of it my eyes were opened to the uniqueness and thought that goes into some companies logo.

    10. Re:Woefully incomplete by moosesocks · · Score: 1

      If we're talking about logotypes in general, there's actually quite a lot of interesting reading:

      Coke vs. Pepsi branding
      Paul Rand's staggeringly impressive portfolio (More here) -- IBM, NeXT, OS/2, ABC, Enron, Westinghouse, and UPS logos were all designed by Rand.
      Rand also proposed (a fairly swanky) new logo for Ford in the 60s, although the company continues to use the same logo that it did in 1912.
      Famous logo nicknames
      Raymond Loewy designed quite a few iconic oil company logos (and the US mail!).
      Best and worst logos of 2008

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    11. Re:Woefully incomplete by jgrahn · · Score: 1

      And lacking BSD, they miss the story of the two Texans reacting to the BSD daemon T-shirt, one of the best stories in BSD history.

      Thanks! I had been looking for that story. Last time I saw it, it was reprinted in an Ericsson company-internal Unix course compendium, under the title "Devil worshipping in Texas". There, it was illustrated with a three-year-old girl wearing a BSD tshirt and looking mischievous ...

    12. Re:Woefully incomplete by bbtom · · Score: 1

      I first read it in 'Getting Started with FreeBSD' - a shortened, printed version of the FreeBSD handbook, if I recall correctly. I had to go to a local free software distributor to buy the CD-ROMs and a printed manual. I'm guessing this was 1997 or 98, and I desperately wanted an operating system that wasn't Windows 95. I've still got the disk package floating around somewhere - version 2.2.6.

      --
      catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
  5. Click here to skip this ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's when I stopped reading it.

    I'm not flipping through that many pages. Too many ads.

    1. Re:Click here to skip this ad by ianare · · Score: 1

      Ads, what ads ? Are you watching TV or something ?

    2. Re:Click here to skip this ad by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Adblock does nothing to stop someone from paginating their content and inserting ad pages. The content is still interrupted.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    3. Re:Click here to skip this ad by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      If only Adblock had the features of EditCSS and Repaginate combined to present such pages as a single page without redundancy.

      If I didn't have to run Firefox 2.0.0.20 on this wretchedly old Redhat 9 system (due to no libpangocairo and too old version of GTK+) I'd be using Stylish to activate style rules on paged sites to hide everything but the story and Repaginate to concatenate all the pages together.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  6. Google's Chrome logo by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    Looking at the high-quality version of that logo, it hit me - it looks a lot like one of those old "Simon" electronic games from the 80s (70s?). I know the game had four colors, and the logo three; but the resemblance is uncanny (to my eyes anyway).

    Okay, my comment is neither "news for nerds" nor "stuff that matters"; but then neither was the story. :-P

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Google's Chrome logo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you had read the short blurb in the "story" you'd see exactly the same remark...

    2. Re:Google's Chrome logo by greenguy · · Score: 1

      It's chrome. I just keep picturing the bumper of a(n) $1960S_MUSCLE_CAR. Not swirly primary colors.

      --
      What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
    3. Re:Google's Chrome logo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=05172006

    4. Re:Google's Chrome logo by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      TFA mentions Simon. So I think your mention should be modded redundant.

  7. I'm confused ... by ianare · · Score: 4, Interesting

    All this time I thought these were the right logos.

  8. Well, I made it one slide by xrayspx · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Red, Green, Yellow and Blue are not "all primary colors". One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong. Maybe you remember it from sandwich bag ads from the late 80s/early 90's? And so another slideshow is closed.

    --
    I like music
    1. Re:Well, I made it one slide by ianare · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Depends on which version of primary colors you use. For computer displays, they are : red, green, and blue. For art (painting), they are : red, yellow, and blue. So you could say all are primary colors.

    2. Re:Well, I made it one slide by xrayspx · · Score: 1

      Win. Someone mod him even more Interesting, and me -1 drunken jackass. Teach me to think during the 30 second comment-preview period.

      --
      I like music
    3. Re:Well, I made it one slide by WebCowboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Red, green and blue are the "additive" primary colours--the three primary components to making any colour with sources of light (computer displays and televisions generally emit light, hence the use of the RGB colour model for video media). You got that one right.

      However two of the primary colours "for art" yo9u mentioned aren't technically correct (but they have an historical basis). The "subtractive" primary colours are magenta, yellow and cyan. This is where you get the "CMYK" cartriges for your printers. The K is for blacK (I guess it isn't called CMYB because blue already took the letter B...).

      The additive and subtractive primary colours have complementary characteristics. If you combine the light from each of the additive primaries you get white. If you combine pigment of each of the subtractive primaries you get black. The subtractive and additive primaries are each exact complementary colours of each other (the complement of one primary is the combination of the other two primaries), hence:

      Red -> complement is green plus blue = Cyan
      Green -> complement is red plus blue = Magenta
      Blue -> complement is red plus green = Yellow

      That is how we get the acronyms for the primary colours: RGB is ordered by wavelength and CMY represents the complement of RGB.

      Anyways, science hadn't established modern colour theory before much of the work done by renaissance painters was completed--colour theory of that time was based upon observation and aesthetics. They saw rainbows, came up with colour wheels, saw how their pigments blended and such and came up with their own set of primary colours. In this case they divided the colour wheel into FOUR parts and picked four primary colours such that each primary had another primary as a complement (it was all about subtractive colour theory too--they didn't know much about the additive primaries of light to have the six primaries we have now). Those colours are roughly RED, YELLOW, GREEN and BLUE (picked as they are the most prominent in rainbow spectrums observed in nature).

      The colours of the Microsoft Windows logo are the four "renaissance painter's primaries". Each pair complements the other and are both bold and pleasing to the eye. The poster ianare is basically right, all four colours are pri,aries in one sense or another, though the details weren't quite complete.

    4. Re:Well, I made it one slide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or to be more exact...
      red, green and blue are additive primary colours.
      yellow is a substractive primary colour (with cyan and magenta).

      Red, yellow and blue are the traditional primary colours (arts and the like).
      Wikipedia has a nice article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_color

    5. Re:Well, I made it one slide by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      Depends on which version of primary colors you use

      I suppose they could be considered primary colors as far as the visible light spectrum goes:

      Red
      Orange
      Yellow
      Green
      Blue
      Indigo
      Violet

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    6. Re:Well, I made it one slide by dotgain · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, the Black component can't be called 'B' because of Blue. It gets the 'K' because in printing it's often called the Key colour. (and the added bonus of having that letter in its name)

    7. Re:Well, I made it one slide by pbhj · · Score: 1

      Ya muppet, the K is for Key, couldn't you have googled it first? ;0)

  9. Obvious omission by Capt.+Cooley · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why not discuss the Apple apple logo and how it changed from Newton to rainbow colors to it's current stark white? IMO the most interesting logo story...

    1. Re:Obvious omission by yo303 · · Score: 1

      Why not discuss the Apple apple logo and how it changed from Newton to rainbow colors to it's current stark white? IMO the most interesting logo story...

      And why not the Chevy logo as well? This is an article about OS logos, not corporations' or car brands' logos.

    2. Re:Obvious omission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, because Google Chrome is an operating system.

    3. Re:Obvious omission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't tell if this is clever meta-humour or not. Although I'd guess not.

    4. Re:Obvious omission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The most interesting thing about Apple is how they stole (Sorry, adopted) the name and logo from another company.

    5. Re:Obvious omission by cbraescu1 · · Score: 1

      There is no connection between Apple the computer company and Apple the Beatles music company. Not on the name, not on the logo. These two companies even agreed on that at the end of a lengthy lawsuit in the '80s.

      --
      Catalin Braescu
      Ofaly.com
  10. What about ... by Skapare · · Score: 1

    ... the Slashdot logo?

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  11. Don't bother by mrgiles · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't bother with the 'article'. It has no insights into any of the logos and is merely idle speculation on the part of the author for the most part.

    You have been warned. . .

    1. Re:Don't bother by Temporal · · Score: 1

      I agree. The author says that the colors of the Chrome logo were inspired by the Windows logo. That's ridiculous -- the colors obviously came from the Google logo. Google uses those four colors in almost all its logos. Obviously the author did not actually do any research.

    2. Re:Don't bother by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      And the writing is sloppy and and vapid and horrid. Normally, I'd suggest to the author, "Don't quit your day job." But in this case, I think it'd be more appropriate to say, "Please quit your day job."

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    3. Re:Don't bother by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a writer who thinks that Geeko is a contraction of Geek and Gecko. I think the word this idiot is looking for is "portmanteau".

      What a horrible article.

    4. Re:Don't bother by xmundt · · Score: 1

      Greetings and Salutations...
                Notice that this is a website focused at "C" level managers. Not that I am saying that being too accurate can cause their heads to hurt...but....
                In any case, there are certain levels of management where one needs fluff to make them feel as if they understand what is going on, yet, not cause them enough confusion that a worried frown might sully their brow.
                Regards
                Dave Mundt

      --
      YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
    5. Re:Don't bother by PriceIke · · Score: 1

      Agree. The author also didn't bother to note that the current Mac OS X box art has a starfield because that comes DIRECTLY from the new Time Machine feature, which was a major selling point for upgrading to Leopard. Instead he goes off on how it reminds him of 2001.

      --
      It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
    6. Re:Don't bother by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 1

      You think the writing is bad? How about the annoying jump-to-the-bottom-of-the-page-after-a-few-seconds-for-no-fucking-reason effect?

      --
      Drill baby drill - on Mars
    7. Re:Don't bother by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 1

      It's yet another of those stupid "slideshow" articles. That's enough to put anybody off.

      ...laura

  12. All Seeing Chrome... by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 1
    From TFA:

    Inspirations aside, the Chrome ball is a powerful image on its own. It's no accident that it resembles an eyeball, signifying knowledge and insight.

    It's funny, I look at it and see Hal 9000 and skynet bundled together in a deviously delightful, 'Simon Says' resemblance that slips it unwittingly past the fears and vigilance of even the most skeptic late 80's and early 90's children. Signifying knowledge and insight is a simply a crafty way of claiming it is 'All Seeing' without the growing number of web conspiracy theorists sinking their teeth into the new Illuminati search engine overlords. I, for one, feel resistance to welcome them, to don my tinfoil hat and hide under the covers until the shining light of Tom Hank's charming humility and powerful wisdom saves us all from the far-reaching tendrils of our thoroughly beta tested overlords...but....but...the temptation is too great...I

    ...just....

    ..have to know....

    ...more useless factoids....

    Google! Here we come with open hearts and willing minds. We shall smight that devious aggressor Bing in thine honor!

    All hail our knowledgeable and insightful self-evolved, self-aware search OS Chrome!!!

    --
    Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
    1. Re:All Seeing Chrome... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Dude... What drugs are you on? And where can I get some?

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  13. Prime Colors... by Brad1138 · · Score: 1
    A quote from the description of the Windows logo

    Why red, green, blue and yellow? They are all primary colors, and contrast well to the human eye

    GREEN is NOT a primary color!!! This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Green is a secondary color along with purple and orange, it is made by combining yellow and blue.

    I work in the TV industry and so many people believe green is a primary color because they see "RGB" monitors (ok that was a while ago), or the red green and blue connections on HD TVS, "they must all be primary colors". Argh!

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
    1. Re:Prime Colors... by johncandale · · Score: 2, Informative

      There are no magic three color pigments that actually exist to make all other colors. red, blue and yellow as the 'mother' colors is just a construct. as far as those TV's are concerned, using the subtractive method (light, not pigment), Red Green Blue ARE the primary colors, because it uses them to make all others it can. Read up on trichromats. You can use lots of 3 different colors as the primary colors.

    2. Re:Prime Colors... by Temporal · · Score: 1

      Red, green, and blue are the primary colors of light. They are the primary colors because they correspond to the three color receptors in our eyes.

      Cyan, magenta, and yellow are the primary colors of ink. They are the *opposites* of red, green, and blue, respectively. Ink works subtractively -- you start from white and remove color -- while light works additively -- you start from black and add. This is why their primary colors are opposites.

      The primary colors of ink are often simplified to blue, red, and yellow instead of cyan, magenta, and yellow since children don't usually recognize colors like cyan and magenta.

      There's nothing physically special about the primary colors; it's the receptors in our eyes that make them primary. Interestingly, some people have a genetic mutation that gives them an additional color receptor -- amber -- which allows them to distinguish colors better than the rest of us. To them, there are actually four primary colors, and colors on TV screens and most printed images look wrong.

    3. Re:Prime Colors... by gardyloo · · Score: 1

      [...] as far as those TV's are concerned, using the __subtractive__additive method (light, not pigment), Red Green Blue ARE the primary colors[...]

    4. Re:Prime Colors... by dotgain · · Score: 2

      GREEN is NOT a primary color!!! This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Green is a secondary color along with purple and orange, it is made by combining yellow and blue.

      I work in the TV industry...

      Not any more you don't. Get out, you're fired. Take a look at the Vectorscope on your way out.

    5. Re:Prime Colors... by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      They are the primary colors because they correspond to the three color receptors in our eyes.

      Other way around.

      Our eyes have red, green, and blue receptors because those are the primary colours [of light].

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    6. Re:Prime Colors... by stdarg · · Score: 1

      Ink works subtractively -- you start from white and remove color -- while light works additively -- you start from black and add.

      I've never understood why that is. I know red paint reflects red light and green paint reflects green light. I know this because you can paint a black surface and it no longer looks black, so paint doesn't act purely like a filter. It definitely reflects light.

      If I mix red and green paint, it seems to me that whenever light happens to hit a red paint molecule the red light component will be reflected and whenever it hits a green paint molecule the green light component will be reflected. If I mix the paints equally, it seems to me that 50% of the reflected light should be red and 50% should be green, thus equivalent to mixing red and green light.

      Instead it seems that if you mix the 3 primary paint colors, you get something that should theoretically be black (but usually turns out grayish brown or purple). I'm not understanding how that works on a physical level.

    7. Re:Prime Colors... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GREEN is NOT a primary color!!! This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Green is a secondary color along with purple and orange, it is made by combining yellow and blue.

      I work in the TV industry...

      Not any more you don't. Get out, you're fired. Take a look at the Vectorscope on your way out.

      Sounds like someone does not grok additive vs subtractive colour.

    8. Re:Prime Colors... by Tacvek · · Score: 1

      You are thinking about it the wrong way around. In the magenta pigment, you have particles that absorb yellow light. (All light not absorbed is reflected). In Cyan pigment you have particles that absorb red light. yellow pigment the blue light is absorbed.

      You mix the blue and cyan pigments, and the red and blue light is absorbed, leaving only the green light to be reflected.

      --
      Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
    9. Re:Prime Colors... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      P.S. That is taught in grade four in Canada.

    10. Re:Prime Colors... by Tacvek · · Score: 1

      That is absurd. We evolved those three specific colors color receptors because they worked reasonably well for distinguishing objects. We could also just as easily have evolved violet, cyan, and orange color receptors.

      --
      Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
  14. missing alot by Xeno+man · · Score: 1

    Well that was disappointing, I was hoping to see images of each version of the Windows logo to show how it evolved, not just a quick description of it with only the latest logo shown. Then the same for Apple and any other company that has gone through years of growth and change. Basically you could have put all the logos on one page and said, "Hey, look at these!" and you would still come away with the same thing.

  15. SKYNET by LoRdTAW · · Score: 1

    I like how the Google chrome logo looks like one of those ominous all seeing eyes of a HAL or Skynet like computer. If any company has the potential to create a skynet, its Google. All hail CHROME!

  16. *BSD by JonJ · · Score: 1

    No mention of the BSD Daemon or Puffy? :(

    --
    -- Linux user #369862
    1. Re:*BSD by MtViewGuy · · Score: 1

      I agree! In fact, the person who created the most famous version of the BSD Daemon logo was none other than Pixar's John Lasseter.

  17. Windows Flag by sc0ob5 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I always thought the Windows flag was Microsoft laying claim to your computer, and everything on it...

  18. News most misleading... by TerrenceCoggins · · Score: 1

    "... and look ahead to their future." More like a future where this portion of the article graces us with it's existence! For shame, /. , not your finest hour... And here I was practically salivating at the prospect of laying these peepers on a (needless to say, though say it I must:) very highly anticipated OS-logo-of-the-future design mock-up slideshow. (One day, though...) For now, however, I'm ever so very marginally outraged!

  19. Many different system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    RGB (light), RBY (art), MCY (printing), L*a*b* space/dE.... And i am probably missing many more.

    1. Re:Many different system by zeromorph · · Score: 1

      In the Berlin and Kay classification, red, green, yellow and blue would be stage five. (Basic colour terms). Colour terms are fun, if you are in idle mode anyway, check out: Test your own color terms

      --
      "Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
  20. the chrome logo by fermion · · Score: 2
    The chrome logo is one the most freaky, scary things around. The big eye looking under the bed, in the drawers and behind he picture frames for any secrets that may be made public for a profit.

    I just wonder if the upcoming chrome OS is going to get he same scrutiny when it 'phones home' as other OS do.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    1. Re:the chrome logo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They forgot to mention the Apple logo reflecting on the top.

    2. Re:the chrome logo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It looks too much like a Simon to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OriginalSimon.jpg "Simon says..." Yeah, creepy!

  21. nicely content-free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All the important things are missing from the lots of thoroughly unimportant crud. A grandiose name that doesn't live up to the promise. Freaking SLIDES where one page would've done. A writer with a PhD in inanity.

    Fits right in with the tell-me-how-to-do-my-job wave of ask slashdot submissions. Carry on then.

  22. crap article by pbjones · · Score: 1

    the article contains almost no information on most of the icons featured, disappointed at the anti-apple remarks. Soooo much more could have been done with this subject.

    --
    There was an unknown error in the submission.
  23. Terrible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The article makes lots of typical mistakes without separating OS and complete distribution. There was just two logos of the OS itself, actually just one. It was the TUX. Windows is other logo for Windows family of the OS's. (NT, MSDOS, CE etc). Ubuntu, Chrome, Red hat and SUSE are just logos for distribution of Linux OS (TUX).

    It would be very short article because you could only add three most used OS's. NT, Linux and even the Darwin (XNU). If they would add three BSD variants you would get six. Then add SunOS logo and you get seven and then Minix and Hurd and you have nine logos of OS's.

    Problem really is that people does not know that Linux is the OS, because every misunderstanded person calls it just a kernel like it would be somekind Mach!

  24. So many pages! by bcmm · · Score: 1

    So many unnecessary pages! and each is so fucking slow to load with all the junk it's filled with. It's much less fun to read a list of things when you have time to tab back to Slashdot and complain in between each item.

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
  25. LInux is not an operating system by karlandtanya · · Score: 1

    And "Geeko" is a portmanteau, not a contraction.

    --
    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
    1. Re:LInux is not an operating system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is funny I was going to say just the opposite:
      Ubuntu/openSUSE/RedHat isn't an OS, just a distro of the Linux OS.

  26. Brown Ring of Quality by lobiusmoop · · Score: 1

    Obligatory Dilbert strip on the Lucent logo

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
  27. Geekiest logo evar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This has to be the logo with the geekiest "explanation" you're likely to see. The logo is probably only appreciated by geeks. But the real kicker is the story behind the logo. I'm guessing that only a few geeks will fully appreciate it. http://syntience.com/aboutlogo.html

  28. Ahh, CIO magazine by ArundelCastle · · Score: 1

    The magazine most likely to: Make me question my career choice.

  29. Brain vs. Retina by mdmkolbe · · Score: 1

    While the retina processes in terms of three colors, the brain actually processes in terms of four colors (or six if you count black and white).