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[jhallen]

I read that Teiyu Goto chose or at least promoted these for the Sony Playstation controller. But where did he get them from?

Take a close look at the Casio fx-5200p / Tandy PC-7 and fx-770p (series) / Tandy PC-6 from 1985.. Was Teiyu Goto a Casio fan?

[Dave Britten]

The story I've heard - can't remember where - is that the X and O represent the typical Japanese marks for incorrect and correct respectively, thus cancel and confirm. A lot of US releases switch this and use X to confirm for some reason, but most Japanese releases use O for making selections.

The square is supposed to look like a piece of paper, or a menu, and is thus the menu button. The triangle resembles a cone and represents a field of vision, and is thus the "change view" button.

[KeithB]

I thought this was going to be a topic about APL! 8^)