CHESS (Windows 3.0)

CHESS is a wallpaper included in Windows 3.0. It is a pixel art piece depicting six chess pieces falling onto an endless checkerboard plane. As a result of 3.0's success, the wallpaper has become somewhat iconic, although not to the same extent as Bliss. There have also been several fanmade recreations of the wallpaper, often in CGI.

While the chess user account picture was included in Windows XP from build 2419 onwards, builds 2475 and 2486 use this wallpaper in its place for unknown reasons, possibly either a mistake or bug during the build’s compilation. It retains the original resolution (640x480), rather than downscaling it to 48x48 like the other user account pictures were. This change was reverted in later builds.