highly recommend this Journal of Visual Culture article, “Because of the Pixels”, which goes in depth on the history and aesthetics of MS Paint and how they are the result of a succession of technical limitations1, and also has delightful paragraphs like this:
So what can we see in this iconic image [the original ‘rage comic’]? The image is sparse and dominated by a default white background. The exact repetition of the seated figure implies the use of ‘copy’ and ‘paste’. There are only five colors in the image: single values for white, black, blue, brown, and red. Except for the heavy lines dividing the four panels and the red text, all of the lines are four pixels wide. Details such as the top corner of the toilet tank, the outstretched fingers, or right pupil of the face all capture moments of transition between perfectly straight lines and shakily curved ones. The ends of various strokes indicate the brush used was likely a circle, while sharp corners where erasure is visible along the figure’s butt in panel two and on the top right edge of the face in panel four, indicate the eraser tool was likely square. Unsurprisingly, a round brush and square eraser are the default on the Windows 95 version of MS Paint.
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but not consistent — the article goes in depth about what drawing with a mouse tends to look like but also mentions that stylus-based systems existed as early as 1973
and it would actually appear in color on composite monitors due to rainbowing artifacts
