Apple originally designed the iconic trash can icon on the early Macintosh operating systems to actually bulge outward when it contained deleted files, visually indicating that the bin was full of garbage.

A closer look

Apple originally designed the iconic trash can icon on the early Macintosh operating systems to actually bulge outward when it contained deleted files, visually indicating that the bin was full of garbage. However, in an incredible display of peak nineties software trivia, the exact visual representation of the trash was actually the focus of a bitter copyright lawsuit from Apple against Microsoft and HP. They literally went to federal court to argue over who officially owned the intellectual property rights to the digital concept of a garbage receptacle. Imagine highly paid corporate lawyers passionately debating the aesthetic originality of a pixelated waste bin in front of a judge while the rest of humanity was just trying to figure out how to successfully install a basic desktop printer!