There’s a really neat stack overflow post about the Amiga OS Kickstart image. They ask why the image included during the bootstrapping sequence of the Amiga computers - known as “Kickstart” - was so ugly. The image showed up and instructed the user to insert the Kickstart floppy so the computer could start.

The short version is that they were severely resource constrained. A bitmap payload would have been around 4KiB, but vector art data for the Kickstart image weighed in at only 412 bytes. This was very important when they only had 8KiB of space to work with for the pre-boot ROM.

The vector art data is as follows:

FF 01 23 0B 3A 0B 3A 21 71 21 71 0B 7D 0B 88 16 88 5E 7F 5E 7F 38 40 38
3E 36 35 36 34 38 2D 38 2D 41 23 48 23 0B FE 02 25 45 FF 01 21 48 21 0A
7E 0A 8A 16 8A 5F 56 5F 56 64 52 6C 4E 71 4A 74 44 7D 3C 81 3C 8C 0A 8C
0A 6D 09 6D 09 51 0D 4B 14 45 15 41 19 3A 1E 37 21 36 21 36 1E 38 1A 3A
16 41 15 45 0E 4B 0A 51 0A 6C 0B 6D 0B 8B 28 8B 28 76 30 76 34 72 34 5F
32 5C 32 52 41 45 41 39 3E 37 3B 37 3E 3A 3E 41 3D 42 36 42 33 3F 2A 46
1E 4C 12 55 12 54 1E 4B 1A 4A 17 47 1A 49 1E 4A 21 48 FF 01 32 3D 34 36
3C 37 3D 3A 3D 41 36 41 32 3D FF 01 33 5C 33 52 42 45 42 39 7D 39 7D 5E
34 5E 33 5A FF 01 3C 0B 6F 0B 6F 20 3C 20 3C 0B FF 01 60 0E 6B 0E 6B 1C
60 1C 60 0E FE 03 3E 1F FF 01 62 0F 69 0F 69 1B 62 1B 62 0F FE 02 63 1A
FF 01 2F 39 32 39 32 3B 2F 3F 2F 39 FF 01 29 8B 29 77 30 77 35 72 35 69
39 6B 41 6B 41 6D 45 72 49 72 49 74 43 7D 3B 80 3B 8B 29 8B FF 01 35 5F
35 64 3A 61 35 5F FF 01 39 62 35 64 35 5F 4A 5F 40 69 3F 69 41 67 3C 62
39 62 FF 01 4E 5F 55 5F 55 64 51 6C 4E 70 49 71 46 71 43 6D 43 6A 4E 5F
FF 01 44 6A 44 6D 46 70 48 70 4C 6F 4D 6C 49 69 44 6A FF 01 36 68 3E 6A
40 67 3C 63 39 63 36 65 36 68 FF 01 7E 0B 89 16 89 5E FE 01 22 0B FE 01
3B 0B FE 01 61 0F FE 01 6A 1B FE 01 70 0F FE 01 7E 5E FE 01 4B 60 FE 01
2E 39 FF FF

The way it was interpreted followed pretty simple rules:

1. Read two bytes at a time.
2. If both bytes are FF, end the program.
3. If the first byte is FF and the second byte is not, start drawing a polyline with the color index given in the second byte. Treat any subsequent two bytes as x,y coordinates belonging to that polyline except if the first byte is FF (see rules 2 and 3) or FE (see rule 4), which is where you stop drawing the line.
4. If the first byte is FE, flood fill an area using the color index given in the second byte, starting from the point whose coordinates are given in the next two bytes.

Sheryl Knowles, the first Amiga artist, noted that there were no real tools on the Amiga to make many of these images aside from when they eventually wrote Graphicraft. At that point, using graphicraft she held the floppy in her left hand and painstakingly created the drawing with her right hand.

The drawing was limited in size and in the number of pixels that could be used, by the programming requirements of the time. All of which should explain why it’s a bad drawing. But it was deemed a sufficient icon.

Which is very true! Even if it’s ugly, it’s clear what it’s supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be high art - it’s supposed to be an icon you see for a couple seconds at most.