To celebrate the X Window System's 40th birthday, I did a deep dive on something about it: the iconography of its boot-up stipple (that gray pattern you first see as the X Server starts up):
https://matttproud.com/blog/posts/x-window-system-boot-stipple.html
Did you know the stipple has a name, age, and cultural significance to the ecosystem? I'll share my personal history with it. What's yours?
Iconography of the X Window System: The Boot Stipple
If you are of a certain vintage, this image is burned indelibly somewhere in your posterior parietal complex: Oh, my old friend. How it’s been a long time. Cultural Significance For the uninitiated, what are we looking at? Could it be the Moiré Error from Doom? Well, no. You are looking at (part of) the boot up screen for the X Window System, specifically the pattern it uses as the background of the root window. This pattern is technically called a stipple.
