Wallpaper (computing)

[1] Mac OS 8 in 1997 was the first Macintosh version to include built-in support for using arbitrary images as desktop pictures, rather than small repeating patterns.

[3] Although Windows 3.0 only came with 7 small patterns (2 black-and-white and 5 16-color), the user could supply other images in the BMP file format with up to 8-bit color (although the system was theoretically capable of handling 24-bit color images, it did so by dithering them to an 8-bit palette)[4] to provide similar wallpaper features otherwise lacking in those systems.

[5] Due to the widespread use of personal computers, some wallpapers have become immensely recognizable and gained iconic cultural status.

[7] macOS has built-in support, via the Desktop & Screen Saver panel in its System Preferences/Settings, for cycling through a folder collection of images on a timed interval or when logging in or waking from sleep.

Since macOS Mojave, the user can also select a "Dynamic Desktop" that automatically updates to visually match the time of the day.