“So, for example, to erase a particular program, one can simply ‘drop’ the program’s icon into an illustration of a trash can on the screen.”
“Cartoon-like representations, called icons, of computer parts or functions, are displayed on the screen and manipulated with a device called a mouse,” explained technology writer Myron Berger in the New York Times in 1986. It also provided a handy way for early adopters to describe the computing process to those who were scared or skeptical. This tiny, charming illustration soon came to symbolize everything good about the GUI. “If you can find the trash can, you can run a computer,” promised one early advertisement for the Lisa.