161–170 of 204 posts
http://toastytech.com/guis/ns08.html NextStep 0.8, '88 vintage.
Those were fun times!
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It might be because of Sega's consoles, which were more popular in the US than they were in Japan, where Nintendo ruled. The Genesis' button layout was A,B,C arranged in a diagonal from bottom-left to top-right. A was usually 'accept'. The Dreamcast had a diamond with A at the bottom and B to the right. Nintendo's Famicom buttons read A,B from right-to-left, and that trend continued with the Super Famicom's diamond,…
As I said in another comment, almost every Megadrive game I've played lets you use both A and C for accept in menus, so you could use whichever orientation you were more comfortable with. I think anyone who started with Nintendo consoles would instinctually rest their thumb between B and C. My guess is that Sony thought that X and O wouldn't have as obvious connotations outside of Japan, and figured that people would…
That's not to say that those expectations weren't due to cultural differences.
It can also be thought of as a pun -- when you want to "exit" an application, you "X it".
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Interesting that that screenshot shows other windowing decorations, but that "close" is hidden in a menu option.
ignore the outer part, thats from a newer version of windows. i remember using the short cuts for x to exit so i searched for a screen shot that had the file menu open
Used many times.
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Agreed. But more to the point, I'd like to know what idiot decided it would be great to put a close button right next to the maximise and minimise buttons. It's a disaster just waiting for a mis-click. Since Win95, everyone else has copied this particular feature. First thing I do whenever I do a new Linux install is put the close button on its own on the left where it belongs.
On Linux I always eliminate window decoration. I don't even like to have borders, let alone buttons I never use. I really wish I could do the same on Mac.
Another old example. WordStar: Used "X" to Exit to system in its main menu ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/markgregory/6946218793/?rb=1 ) - I do not know the revision shown in the screen shot. According to Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar ) WordStar was released in 1978. Which moves the date back to at least 1978 to use X for exit. However, there is possibly a very simple explanation that the blog po…
Another old example. WordStar: Used "X" to Exit to system in its main menu ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/markgregory/6946218793/?rb=1 ) - I do not know the revision shown in the screen shot. According to Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar ) WordStar was released in 1978. Which moves the date back to at least 1978 to use X for exit. However, there is possibly a very simple explanation that the blog po…
First, it's properly ^K X, as the ^K prefix subcommands block/file actions, as written by Rob Barnaby into all the WordStar versions starting with CP/M.
Second, ^KX as 'exit' means to save the latest revisions out to file before quitting, while ^KQ, 'quit', means to abandon the revisions. You might get a confirmation dialog and a chance to change your mind before you're dumped back to the commandline.
Current-convention iconic close-window behavior more closely emulates the latter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might be because of Sega's consoles, which were more popular in the US than they were in Japan, where Nintendo ruled. The Genesis' button layout was A,B,C arranged in a diagonal from bottom-left to top-right. A was usually 'accept'. The Dreamcast had a diamond with A at the bottom and B to the right. Nintendo's Famicom buttons read A,B from right-to-left, and that trend continued with the Super Famicom's diamond,…
SNES was also more popular than the Genesis in the west.
Interesting, but the connection to symbols from Japan seems a bit dubious (or at least not very recent). The term "cross out", and hence the use of an "x" to indicate negating something, seems to have been in common use in English since at least the 1920s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cross+out
Another old example. WordStar: Used "X" to Exit to system in its main menu ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/markgregory/6946218793/?rb=1 ) - I do not know the revision shown in the screen shot. According to Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar ) WordStar was released in 1978. Which moves the date back to at least 1978 to use X for exit. However, there is possibly a very simple explanation that the blog po…
In WordStar it's a little more nuanced than that. First, it's properly ^K X, as the ^K prefix subcommands block/file actions, as written by Rob Barnaby into all the WordStar versions starting with CP/M. Second, ^KX as 'exit' means to save the latest revisions out to file before quitting, while ^KQ, 'quit', means to abandon the revisions. You might get a confirmation dialog and a chance to change your mind before you'…
On WordStar 7.0a for dos, the main start screen menu selection is "X exit WordStar".