Fossil Friday.
Your interface speaks a dead language and everyone's fluent. Save is a floppy disk. CC is carbon paper. Radio buttons are a 1950s car stereo. Here's where the metaphors came from — and why they outlived the objects that made them.
- 1982 → still on your toolbar
Why Save is a floppy disk
The 3.5-inch floppy disk — 1.44 MB, a sliding metal shutter, a satisfying clunk The Save icon, still sitting on your toolbarRead the fossil - Carbon paper, 1806 → your email header
Why CC means carbon copy
A sheet of carbon paper, slipped between two pages in a typewriter The CC and BCC fields at the top of every emailRead the fossil - Xerox Star, 1981 → every phone in your pocket
Where the hamburger menu came from
A stack of horizontal lines drawn for the Xerox Star in 1981 The ☰ menu button in the corner of nearly every appRead the fossil - Push-button car radios, 1950s → every settings screen
Why they're called radio buttons
The mechanical preset buttons on an old car radio The little round pick-only-one buttons in every formRead the fossil - Typewriter tabulator, 1900s → every web form
Why the Tab key is called Tab
The typewriter's tabulator lever, for typing neat columns The Tab key that jumps you from field to fieldRead the fossil