The true story of the Windows 3.1 'Hot Dog Stand' color scheme
19 comments
·December 12, 2025wesfenlon
Thanks for sharing! I was pleased I was able to track down Virginia and she had a clear memory of how Hot Dog Stand came to be.
noveltyaccount
I'm so glad that there's room for this kind of investigative journalism in this day and age. Kudos!
caminanteblanco
Thanks for an awesome writeup! I've been reading your articles on PCGamer since highschool, and they've always been my favorite of the bunch!
jmkni
It was a fun read, cheers
cadr
I'm amused she said they included it "in case somebody out there liked ugly bright red and yellow" and that "the 'Fluorescent' theme was also pretty ugly, but it didn't have a catchy name, so I've never heard anything about it."
Because I loved the Fluorescent theme.
stuaxo
Flourescent looks so of it's time, it fits right into an age of acid house, where you could go hang out in the hologram shop [1].
[1] - E Is for Ecstacy - BBC Everyman Documentary https://youtu.be/jyrhcjRc3TU?si=Qn9qG2z8wQzD-llJ&t=812
xnx
Back when users picked the UI colors for the apps instead of the apps picking for the users.
charcircuit
People can self sabotage by choosing a bad theme, and then they engage with the app less or even churn. Designers need to be careful to not give people rope for them to hang themselves with.
toast0
Certainly that's a good reason to force a legible version of settings, and the path to settings...
But if the user sets the system to hot dog stand, the apps should be hot dog stand. If the user wants the system text font to be wingdings, they're in for a nasty time, but that doesn't mean an app should force a different font
reaperducer
and then they engage with the app less or even churn.
If your content is so poor that a change of colors can make people leave, then perhaps your content is not worth having.
charcircuit
The colors is part of the content of the product.
hulitu
> Designers need to be careful to not give people rope for them to hang themselves with.
See Win 95 resolution change workflow.
This was 20 years ago. A lot of knowledge was lost since then.
breppp
This made me search and find this, screenshots of every win 3.11 theme:
https://imgur.com/gallery/every-windows-3-1-theme-SsVYqM1
at least half were painfully ugly
skydhash
Still more readable than what Apple has released lately.
MontyCarloHall
The "Plasma Power Saver" theme actually was function over form, and was not an aesthetic choice (or lack thereof). It was to reduce burn-in on the plasma displays of old portable computers, e.g. here [0].
[0] https://retro.swarm.cz/20170331/windows-31-running-on-ibm-ps...
blibble
I'd rather use 3.1 with the hot dog scheme vs. windows 11...
as long as it has trumpet winsock
fsiefken
I agree, and Calmira LFN 3.3 and Microsoft Office 4.3 Would Notepad++ work? What would you use as a graphical www browser? I mean even with win32s and modern ssl support somehow built-in it'd be challenge.
emperorcezar
This brings up so many memories
We've now seemed to have invented glass, but in some kind of a parodic form.