• molave@reddthat.com
    1·
    1 year ago

    In another timeline, Windows 95 introduced the ‘Options’ button, a revolutionary breakthrough in graphical interface design.

  • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
    140·
    1 year ago

    It’s select and start.
    What’s it supposed to be, windows and hamburgers?

    • The Picard Maneuver@startrek.websiteOP
      65·
      1 year ago

      I won’t give it up. Select and Start.

      My wife makes fun of me for it whenever we play couch co-op games. “What do you mean press start? My controller doesn’t have a Start”

    • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
      91·
      1 year ago

      WTF was the select button actually for? I get start because it was often the button on arcades or gamepads that allowed you to choose menu options (which still works but has mostly been replaced by A).

      What were we supposed to be “selecting”?

      • rotopenguin@infosec.pubEnglish
        161·
        1 year ago

        Select and Start was how the Atari 2600 did things. At the time, everybody was designing in terms of having one set of controls for when you’re in the game, and a set of meta-controls for adjusting stuff outside the game. The 2600 configuration GUI was the dumbest thing in the world. You look at a grid chart of game options in the manual, and you press the Select button 35 times to get to the version that you want.

        The Famicom was much more able to draw and interact with a real configuration GUI. But Nintendo’s own experience was mostly in making the arcade game “Donkey Kong”, where you pick how many players by “pressing” the insert coin button and then Start. Nintendo was selling to a market that mostly knows home games from picking up a 2600 at a bankruptcy sale. So, keeping the separate meta-game buttons and game buttons was natural at the time. Later games developed a better design language for the meta-game UI, so most game studios left the Select/Start interface behind.

        (Lol now I see that TubbyCustard said it all, but better)

        • son_named_bort@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          The start button back then was called the reset switch. Hit reset when you get to game 13, you’d say. Now where was I? Oh yeah, the game select switch was on the console, which was the style at the time.

          • rotopenguin@infosec.pubEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Oh yeah, they did put “reset” on it huh? I don’t know how they ever came up with that. Everywhere else, “reset” means “device gets zeroed out to its initialization state”. The only real reset was to turn the system off and on again. On some of those Atari originals, when you press select one time too many turning it off is the fastest way to start back around again. Video Olympics I’m looking at you

        • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          I used to have a black and white Binatone TV game knockoff.

          10 games, mostly variations of Pong. All the game options like speed and bat size were big physical toggle switches on the main unit.

      • Grammaton Cleric@lemmy.world
        21·
        1 year ago

        On the title screen of older NES games, the select button changed what mode you played in, then you hit start to start that mode/variation.

      • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
        12·
        1 year ago

        It was originally for selecting different options.
        You’re on the start screen and it says:

        1 Player.
        2 Players.

        You press select to choose which one. That’s just an example, lots of NES games were like that.

      • CubbyTustard@reddthat.com
        12·
        1 year ago

        it is a legacy of the move from arcade cabinets to home game machines. Cabinets had the normal controls up top for the game but there were other buttons and switches for controlling the cabinet itself including access to higher level game functions like difficulty settings and test modes that weren’t meant to be exposed to the user.

        When Atari made their console the user held the controller for the game but there were also several switches on the console itself providing these same higher level functions (reset and game select) as many games were ported from cabinets.

        nintendo moved these switches from the console to the controller, and then as game development evolved these buttons became part of the normal controller and software scheme.

    • KaiReeve@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 year ago

      I actually have a windows button on my gaming device. Still searching for the hamburgers button though

    • I'm back on my BS 🤪@lemmy.worldEnglish
      122·
      1 year ago

      ⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️🅱️🅰️🅱️🅰️[select][start]

      REST 30 REST 30

      🏅🏅🏅🏅 🎖️🎖️🎖️🎖️

    • WhyIDie@lemmy.ml
      14·
      1 year ago

      I’ll never give up start, but the select button hasn’t been used as an actual selector button in decades

    • valek879@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      1 year ago

      Honestly I call them “start” and “the tab button.”

      I grew up with a PlayStation and PS2 but haven’t owned any console since the switch, preferring PC. So I remember start because it’s the start menu but select is usually on tab on PC.

  • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
    20·
    1 year ago

    Yeah, same. I actually forget the name of the button, too, so when I give someone the controller so they can play and they ask “how do I open the menu?” I’ll say “oh press start. It’s not called start actually but you know press the button that looks like it should be called start.”

  • Stamets [Mirror]@startrek.website
    8·
    1 year ago

    Had this argument with someone a couple days ago. Said my start button was sticking and they gave me shit for it.

    I am not a violent man. I do my best to be as kind and caring as possible. I wanted to drown him.

  • Onurb [he/him]@hexbear.net
    31·
    1 year ago

    Unpopular Opinion: The Playstation Controllers dont have an X button. Everyone should be calling it cross and would save so much confusion. Like there is a triangle, a circle, a square and another geometric shape. Hate having to specify when playing couch coop with friends if they have to press the xbox x or the playstation x. I know with nintendo people it gets even worse.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I hate that Xbox stole the buttons from Nintendo and then swapped them over just to fuck with me more.

      Between Sony, MS, Nintendo and Gamecube Nintendo, the X button can be in four different places.

    • Stamets [Mirror]@startrek.website
      4·
      1 year ago

      That’s not even an opinion, it’s fact. PlayStation calls it the cross button. Watch Dogs Legion has an accessibility option to read things out that’s permanently turned on for the opening menu. It says “Press the cross button”. Various manuals and in game text say cross too.

      That being said I will be rotting in hell before I ever call it the cross button.

  • TallonMetroid@lemmy.world
    61·
    1 year ago

    My main controller is the 8bitdo sf30 pro, which as basically the Super Famicom controller but with sticks and extra buttons for modern functionality labels them Start and Select, as ordained by heaven.

  • lukini@beehaw.org
    10·
    1 year ago

    I will always call it the start button, but to be honest, menu or options are better names for what it does.

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
    53·
    1 year ago

    Did the buttons really need renaming? It’s not like options and share or + and - make any more sense

    • TheAndrewBrown@lemm.eeEnglish
      71·
      1 year ago

      I get being nostalgic for Start/Select but how does Options/Share not make more sense? The options button brings up a menu of options for most games and share allows you to share screenshots or video from the game. Whereas start did the same thing options does now which has nothing to do with the word Start and Select was sorta a catch all button for an action you only used occasionally, but was never used for selecting which was usually X but sometimes one of the other shapes.

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
        7·
        1 year ago

        Options I kinda get but it sounds dumb to me, would’ve been better as “menu” because it’s not exclusively for options, also for pausing and other menus.

        Share isn’t what that button normally does at all in my mind, sure maybe PlayStation have it bound to that but normally it brings up an alternate menu to start that isn’t the pause menu (like in Minecraft and overwatch it brings up player list/scoreboard as an example

        A lot of games I believe use it for the map too

        • TheAndrewBrown@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          I haven’t played Overwatch or Minecraft but every game I’ve played with one of those options used pressing in the touchpad to do that. I’ve never played a game where the share button didn’t share somehow.

          I just looked it up and for Minecraft it’s used to take a screenshot or bring up a screenshot menu. I couldn’t find anything for Overwatch though. Are you sure you didn’t remap the button? Or are you using it for PC? It might work different in that case.

          I do agree that menu would’ve been a better name, but that doesn’t mean that Options doesn’t make more sense than Start which is what the original comment said.

      • lorty@lemmygrad.ml
        1·
        1 year ago

        Is that functionality for share a console specific thing? I don’t remember any games that used it for that purpose (on pc)

      • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
        5·
        1 year ago

        The traditional role of the Select button is actually handled via the D-pad in most games. It was the button you used to change your selection, not to actually select something (that would be done with Start.)

        Of course, even in the NES era past the first couple of years menus could generally be navigated with the D-pad, so even then Select was pretty useless, which is probably why the Genesis didn’t bother with it.

    • ursakhiin@beehaw.org
      10·
      1 year ago

      For the switch, plus and minus have a symbolic benefit of matching their position on the console itself when the joycons are detached. It’s not significant enough to warrant the rename but it at least is more than just a rename.