Iconography of the PuTTY tools

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Color Choices and 90s Icon Conventions

  • Commenters link PuTTY’s blue screen to common 80s/90s UI: CGA “blue” backgrounds, DOS editors (EDIT, WordPerfect, Turbo Pascal/C), MS-DOS installers, and Windows 3.1/95/98 computer icons.
  • Blue was popular because it was easier on the eyes given limited palettes; “white on blue” often really meant CGA/EGA color 7 (light gray) rather than bright white (color 15).
  • Some argue the author simply forgot how “obvious” these choices felt at the time due to strong Windows visual precedent.
  • Black‑and‑white icons are tied to monochrome laptops and possibly printer limitations; exact original rationale is debated/unclear.

Lightning Bolt Iconography

  • Several people insist yellow is the “obvious” lightning color, backed by cartoons, comics, and black‑on‑yellow safety signs and ISO warning symbols.
  • Others note cyan lightning is also visually common (e.g., modern media, “cyber” aesthetics, EV accents), but most still see yellow as the canonical warning/electricity symbol.
  • There’s speculation that UI lightning bolts inherit from industrial safety graphics and longstanding associations between electricity and amber.

“Reassuringly Old‑Fashioned” UI and Win32

  • Many find PuTTY’s unchanged 90s look comforting and trustworthy compared to “modern” UIs with heavy padding, animations, low contrast, and ambiguous controls.
  • Win32 apps are praised as fast, clean, and information‑dense; Electron and newer Windows UI stacks are criticized as bloated or awkward.
  • Some lament that if Microsoft had evolved Win32 into a modern, lightweight toolkit, Electron might never have taken off.

Bitmap vs SVG and Icon Quality

  • Several feel something is lost moving from pixelated bitmaps to clean SVG: low‑res art lets the imagination fill gaps; high resolution demands higher design quality.
  • A near 1:1 vector translation of pixel icons (thinner outlines, same shapes) is seen as unsatisfying; high‑DPI versions often “ruin” original pixel charm.
  • Some want a cleaner modern icon set but believe drastic changes would confuse users who locate PuTTY by its familiar 90s glyph.

Project Psychology: Icons, Names, and Bike‑Shedding

  • The anecdote about almost blocking a release over an icon resonates; many admit stalling projects over icons, naming repos, or other trivial details.
  • Commenters distinguish “bike‑shedding” (group overfocus on trivial issues) from “yak‑shaving” (prerequisite tangents) and “analysis paralysis.”
  • Some report using LLMs specifically to get unstuck on naming.

Nostalgia and Anecdotes

  • Numerous nostalgic stories surface: early Telnet use, Win3.1 screenshots, Windows 95 on floppies and in monochrome, keyboard‑only UI rescues, and network‑lab pranks.
  • A small PuTTY fork with a custom “red brick” icon is credited with dramatically shifting a community from telnet to SSH.
  • Overall tone mixes affection for PuTTY’s stability and iconography with appreciation for the behind‑the‑scenes design history.