D.2 The Story Behind the Windows Sockets Icon

(by Alistair Banks, Microsoft Corporation)

We thought we'd do a "Wind Sock" at one stage--but you try to get that into 32x32 bits! It would have had to look wavy and colorful, and... well, it just didn't work. Also, our graphics designers have "opinions"

about the icons truly representing what they are--people would have thought this was "The colorful wavy tube specification 1.0!"

I tried to explain "API" "Programming Interface" to the artist--we ended up with toolbox icons with little flying windows. Then we came to realise that we should be going after the shortened form of the name, rather the name in full... Windows Sockets... And so we went for that - so she drew (now remember I'm English and you're probably American) "Windows Spanner", a.k.a. a socket wrench. In the U.S. you'd have been talking about the "Windows Socket spec" OK, but in England that would have been translated as "Windows Spanner Spec 1.0" - so we went to Electrical sockets - well the first ones came out looking like "Windows Pignose Spec 1.0"!!!!

So how do you use 32x32, get an international electrical socket! You take the square type (American & English OK, Europe & Australia are too rounded)--you choose the American one, because it's on the wall in front of you (and it's more compact (but less safe, IMHO) and then you turn it upside down, thereby compromising its nationality!

[IMHO = "In My Humble Opinion"--ed.]