Old Clipart from Windows 3.1! - Old Disc Journeys

[monsterrobotics]

I love old stuff. I grew up in the "antique store" industry (which is what I call it, but it's not really industrialized [yet]), so I've always loved old stuff, be it technology or objects or clothes or whatever. I've kind of been ahead of the 20-year fashion cycle (in which things from 20 years ago become fashionable again) in that I've always liked older things more than the modern. This era we're in only exacerbates it for everyone, I think, and I mean that for a lot of aspects of life, not just the prevalence of the neo-y2k.

Anyways, this is a post about Clip art. Clip art are illustrations and commonly used for presentation decoration or flyers or anything similar just as a videographer might use stock photos and video. The name comes from how traditionally, you cut out or "clipped" images for use in other works. Similar origins to why we say cut and paste!

I found two really old discs for DOS 5.0 or Windows 3.1 (according to their jewel-cases) while cleaning out old stock for a job once. Instead of putting them in the donate boxes, why not donate them to myself? I wanted to see if I could pull the images off of them for my own use and archive. One disc I've not gotten to work yet, nor could I get the image files, but the other disc... the images are all folders on the disc!

It of course, comes with a free 15-hour trial of AOL online. May dial-up rest in peace.



Without further ado (I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE HERE FOR!), here are some... unique "favorites" from Key Mega ClipArt 7000 for Windows(TM)

This is from the "Religious" folder, and it's your man JC. He looks a wee bit haunted though.


I love this, but I also love that you HAVE to know the on the right is #girl because #pinkbow. Can't have two MALE computers talking to each other. How scandalous!


So this one is a first example of a glitch I've found in a lot of the images. I predict it's something messy with the transfer of the original filetypes (WMF, Windows Metafile) to the modern bitmap format. Given that the wikipedia article on them says they're a mix of bitmaps and vectors, I think the stringy lines that occur are some hiccups with the vector math. I do not know if they show up on original hardware, because I haven't gotten DOS or Windows 3.1 up and working yet to try the program these images come out of! But, you'll see the string-i-ness a lot in some of these, alongside what I assume and hope to be color matching issues.


This guy's named "Disk Eater" -- watch out! He's awesome, though.


This is a Dodo bird. He's a bit messed up.


I do not like these bowling ball headed people. They're horrifying to me.


You know what, nevermind. The bowling ball heads are charming creatures.


And this... is just named creature. This is THEE creature. I don't think he's meant to be... crying blood. I think that's just the glitch happening with the vector lines.


This TV just makes me think of a microwave.


An alien that rules and really invokes ET. And the "You Know I Had to Do It to Em" guy.


YEAH WOO!!! WIZARD!!!


Now... This is surely a glitch relating to, what I assume is, a gradient effect on a magic wand. But it does just currently look like... a censor bar of sorts. Really funny glitch


He's a fun dragon!


I just noticed that this funny doodle of a clown seems to have a signature saying "curio clown". Too vague to know if it's a watermark of sorts, might just be a fun detail, or his name/title!


 


Just titled "toonboy". Reminds me of a very mean cartoon bully character.


A beautiful lil' guy to use when your site's under maintenance :) Or, I can imagine our work IT guy using this to warn us about update downtime.


Stop looking at me like that.


This one's one of my favorites. She's charming. I love the idea of the wing being a hand and giving a peace sign. So cute!


This guy helps me express an emotion, but I don't know what emotion that is.


I like his toony pose. Throwing your waste away is #cool yay woo! 


You know he's about to get into some mischief. 


A great image for when you need to tell your kids not to play in the washing machine. Get him out of there!


Those are my highlights. Let me know what you think of these guys and gals. Share with me your fun old (whether in style or age) clip arts you love. No Corporate Memphis allowed here! Maybe even draw your OWN pixely, vectory clip art to go with these?

  If I find any more good images from this one or the other disc when I get it to work, I'll share ^-^

[Dan Q]

This is excellent! Keep spelunking!

Can I just swoop in to recommend the Mastodon account @clipart@mastodon.art? The owner acquired a 1994 CD-ROM of 10,000 clip art images and they're sharing them, one at a time. The alt text is frequently hilarious.

[monsterrobotics]

This is excellent! Keep spelunking!

Can I just swoop in to recommend the Mastodon account @clipart@mastodon.art? The owner acquired a 1994 CD-ROM of 10,000 clip art images and they're sharing them, one at a time. The alt text is frequently hilarious.

Oh HECK yes! I love this. Same era of my discs too (the backs say (c) 1994). I'll definitely snoop this account.

[grubbyfox]

Hahah that guy with the gun lmaooo cursed angle. These are so funny and jarring. Almost reminds me of that haunted colouring book Ashens sometimes brings out in his videos.


That police dude, jeezus. ABsolutely cursed. People were really just making anything and calling it clipart, lmao

[clownvomitz]

oh my goodness these are so fun and full of character! quite fond of the clown doodle and little devilish fella.