
X to close - viclou
https://medium.com/solve-for-x/x-to-close-417936dfc0dc
======
bhauer
As an Atari ST user from 1985 to roughly 1993, I wasn't expecting the author
would actually mention GEM/TOS. I was pleasantly surprised when I scrolled
down and, lo, there it is.

That said, since the "X" in this case is white on a black background, I always
interpreted the icon as four arrows pointing inward to indicate a
shrinking/disappearing motion. In fact, when you closed a window, GEM would
play an (inelegant) animation akin to the Macintosh of the time, composed of a
sequence of boxes first shrinking from the size of the window to a small box
and then shuffling that off to the top left of the screen.

As bemmu points out, the maximize button (at the top right in a GEM/TOS
window) is four arrows pointing outward. Incidentally, GEM did not have a
notion of "minimize."

Put another way, although I find the Japanese inspiration argument
interesting, I don't think there's a whole lot to it. I think it's a fun
coincidence.

In any event, thank you for the trip down memory lane and for the fun screen
grabs!

~~~
ekianjo
I don't think there is much relevance in the Japanese argument. One funny
detail is that Sony actually inverted in their games the meaning of Round and
X for western markets -> making X act as "validate" and Round as
"Back/Cancel", the exact opposite of what they do in Japan.

As for "X being a true icon", I don't know. For me, it could stand as well as
an abbreviation for "eXit" -> X.

The AmigaOS Workbench used (and still uses) a dot instead of a X. It's just a
matter of conventions.

~~~
Bahamut
Was this true in all of their games? I know early PlayStation games did use O
for confirm and X for cancel - even a few years into its lifetime, this was
the case as Final Fantasy VII is an obvious example.

~~~
ekianjo
Are you talking about the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII or the western
version ? I have the Japanese version at home, I can check quickly if needed.

~~~
simias
Both versions use O to accept and X to cancel. In the european FFVIII hovewer
it was switched around. I think only early and rushed ports of japanese titles
used O to accept on the playstation.

It's still true today, for instance dark souls on the ps3 uses O to accept on
the japanese version and X on the western.

I'm still not sure why Sony did that by the way. While I'm willing to believe
that X strongly means "bad/false" in japanese, I don't feel like it really
means "accept" in western cultures as far as I know. When the playstation came
out I don't think I would have had a lot of trouble accepting O for accept and
X for cancel.

~~~
tragic
I think in FFVIII it was Triangle to cancel. (O was the menu button.) They
completely jumbled it all up for some reason.

~~~
mhurron
Triangle was the menu button, O for cancel, X to accept/action, Square to play
Triple Triad.

~~~
eropple
I believe I had to remap 'menu' back to Triangle when I played through it on
my Vita last month. Could be misremembering though.

------
pwg
Another old example.

WordStar: Used "X" to Exit to system in its main menu
([https://www.flickr.com/photos/markgregory/6946218793/?rb=1](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](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 posting
overlooked. In text menu's, such as WordStar's, which were quite common for a
lot of software from that era, using the word "Exit" to mean "leave this
program/application" was also common. When one goes looking for a single
character memonic for "Exit" to build in as a keystroke to activate the "Exit"
command from the menu, one has four choices: [e] [x] [i] [t]

Since [x] is an uncommon letter, while e, i, t, are more common, and therefore
more likely to be used for triggering other commands in the menu(s), choosing
[x] to mean exit meant that the same character could likely be used as a
universal "leave this menu" command key across all the menus.

Which would then lead to the common _F_ile->E_x_it command accelerators in
drop down style menus (whether in a GUI or in a text menuing system). [x] was
unlikely to have been used for the keyboard accelerator for other entries in
the "file" menu, so picking e[x]it was a safe choice.

It is not a far reach from _F_ile->E_x_it using [x] as its accelerator key to
labeling the title bar button that performs the same function with an X as
well, to take advantage of whatever familiarity users might have with the drop
down menu accelerators

~~~
crb3
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're dumped back
to the commandline.

Current-convention iconic close-window behavior more closely emulates the
latter.

~~~
pwg
Correct on the commands while editing a document, but I was specifically
referring to the WordStar start screen before one begins editing a document
(check the flickr link) where it has "X EXIT to system" (the all caps is also
in the screen shot).

On WordStar 7.0a for dos, the main start screen menu selection is "X exit
WordStar".

------
glurgh
[http://toastytech.com/guis/ns08.html](http://toastytech.com/guis/ns08.html)

NextStep 0.8, '88 vintage.

~~~
reedlaw
Good find. That's clearly an [X] in the upper-right corner.

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah, but still more recent than Atari's Gem.

~~~
glurgh
The Atari Gem thing is not an X, it's actually supposed to be a gem. It's just
confusing because of the low-res image. Take a look at

[http://toastytech.com/guis/gem11menu.png](http://toastytech.com/guis/gem11menu.png)

~~~
empressplay
That's not GEMTOS, that's GEM for DOS... big difference...

~~~
glurgh
I was looking at the wrong end of the window, to boot.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TOS#mediaviewer/File:ST_D...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TOS#mediaviewer/File:ST_Desktop.png)

Looks pretty X-like. It seems GEM itself was licensed from Digital Research
but their GEM didn't use X.

Edit: Fixed DEC to DR, as pointed out by reply comment below.

~~~
ahy1
I doubt DEC had anything to do with GEM. It was a product of Digital Research
(same company that gave us CP/M, MP/M and DR-DOS)

~~~
glurgh
They didn't, I just brainfarted. You know,
[http://vt100.net/dec/alpha_era_logo_small.png](http://vt100.net/dec/alpha_era_logo_small.png)
and all that.

------
sbw1
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](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cross+out)

~~~
gnarbarian
A few counterpoints.

"X marks the spot"

Checking a box to indictate your selection on a form or ballot.

I can't think of any more off the top of my head.

~~~
pjlegato
Checkmarks (positive, accepted item) are quite often opposed to X marks
(negative, undesired item).

------
lunchbox
It can also be thought of as a pun -- when you want to "exit" an application,
you "X it".

~~~
baliex
I'd describe that as "verbing" it rather than "punning" it. The verb makes
sense too, when you take keyboard short cuts into account. A very common short
cut to exit a program (in Windows at least) is File->Exit, which translates to
`Alt+F, X` so you do, in fact, "X it".

------
itazula
Wow, I had always thought the "X" was like an elevator close button. Sort of
like a greater-than sign and a less-than sign put together: ><.

~~~
seszett
That's interesting... is the latin alphabet your native script?

~~~
itazula
Yes, English is my first language. I don't know why I internalized that symbol
the way I did. And looking at the Atari TOS screenshot, I would have said the
symbol in the upper right corner looked like an elevator "open" symbol,
something like <>. But thinking more deeply, >< and <> are in only one
dimension. They are good for expressing the idea of "close" and "open"
respectively, but they fail to acknowledge the two-dimensional character of a
window. So, I like what some of the other posters have said about four
arrowheads pointing in and out respectively. That said, the symbol of two
diagonal, outward-pointing arrows in the upper right corner of Mac OS X
windows now strikes me as brilliant; in a minimal way, the idea of maximizing
in two dimensions is expressed.

------
kybernetikos
The Acorn Arthur operating system, a precursor to Risc OS used a sort of fat X
icon to close windows in 1987

[http://www.mjpye.org.uk/images/screens/arthur2.gif](http://www.mjpye.org.uk/images/screens/arthur2.gif)

~~~
aembleton
I never used Acorn Arthur but I did use RiscOS 3 whilst at primary school
circa '91, and this had an X in the corner:
[http://www.mjpye.org.uk/images/screens/riscos-02.gif](http://www.mjpye.org.uk/images/screens/riscos-02.gif)

I'm sure the GUI design of RiscOS 3 helped to inspire Windows 95.

~~~
ianetaylor
I don't remember where the [X] came from specifically but there were a bunch
of Brits on the Windows team at the time (myself included) and we had a number
of Archimedes machines around. A _lot_ of Lemmings was played.

I remember there was nearly endless debate about where the [X] should go so
people wouldn't accidentally. I think the desire to make it visually distinct
was a big factor.

~~~
kybernetikos
Interesting. That surprises me - I'd always assumed that the UK scene didn't
have much influence on the US technology world.

~~~
ianetaylor
At the time Microsoft's Languages Division was run by a Welsh guy (David
Jones) and he liked to hire fellow Brits.

------
lotsofmangos
RiscOS had the x as well in the late 1980s

edit - Here's Arthur, the precursor to RiscOS in ~ 1986 -
[http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/2012/PaulFellows/10...](http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/2012/PaulFellows/1024/IMG_8131.jpg)
\- It has nice x icons.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Here's a cleaner shot:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/Risc_OS_311_De...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/Risc_OS_311_Desktop.png)

Until the NewLook sprite set, it looks more like a weird flower shape than an
X.

Here it is with NewLook:
[http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/desktop/full/riscos...](http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/desktop/full/riscos37.png)

Clearly now an X.

~~~
gpvos
That's RISC OS 3, which is several years later. Arthur already had the X in
1987, see for example [http://mobile.osnews.com/story.php/18941/mobile-opt-
out.php](http://mobile.osnews.com/story.php/18941/mobile-opt-out.php) . (Later
than the 1985 find in Atari OS of the original article, but still
interesting.)

As far as I know, Acorn's RISC OS also pioneered the icon bar and the context
menu.

~~~
LeoPanthera
I see that, but it's the same symbol as pre-NewLook RO3, and is only
charitably described as an "X". It's more of a splat.

------
literalusername
_In this early demo (Codename: Chicago), the minimize and maximize buttons
have been redesigned, but the close button remains the same, and to the left
as before._

I wonder where the author got the idea that the [-] button at the top-left was
a close icon. It was the "Control Box", a menu icon. AFAIK it's still there,
just invisible -- hit alt+space to open it.

Disclaimer: I'm currently unable to test that.

~~~
bcoates
If you double-click it, it closes the application. It was converted from a
picture of a spacebar to the application's icon, but still functions the same
way.

~~~
hamstergene
Some time ago I was stunned discovering how many Windows users had no idea
that double-clicking [-] closes the window. I bet that was the main reason for
introducing separate close button.

~~~
dysfunction
As someone who used Windows 3.1 for years and now uses Powershell on Windows 7
every day at work, I'm ashamed to admit I had no idea.

------
kabdib
I worked at Atari, on the Atari ST (writing a bunch of systems-level code). My
cow-orkers were working closely with DRI to port GEM to the ST hardware. GEM
wasn't done yet, and much of the engineering effort there was helping DRI
finish it up. A lot of stuff was done on the Atari side of the fence that
never made it back to the DRI sources.

I can categorically state that there wasn't any Japanese influence on that
"X".

If anything, it was programmer art. We Atari folks were mostly video-game
programmers, with _some_ sense of design, and a lot of the stuff that was
coming out of DRI was pretty ugly. So it probably got tweaked late a night
until it "looked pretty" and wasn't revisited (the ST was started and shipped
in about 10 months, so we were in kind of a hurry).

------
iachimoe
As the article shows, the close button on MacOS classic was basically an empty
box, but on mousing down on that box, it transformed into something that looks
a bit like an x. I'm basing this on what I can see from using [1], but from my
possibly inaccurate recollection of using the real thing in the 80s and 90s,
some versions of MacOS had an even more "x like" mouse down image on the close
button.

[1] [http://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/](http://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/)

~~~
lstamour
Yeah, I was remembering this too. Of course, it also kind of felt like you'd
"selected" the box. In fact, I think early checkboxes had x in them on Mac,
didn't they? So it might have been a bit of a coincidence ... or an
inspiration.

------
lwh
The delete/rubout key on many old terminals had an X on it. Like this:
[http://www.cosam.org/images/vt220/keyboard.jpg](http://www.cosam.org/images/vt220/keyboard.jpg)

~~~
boobsbr
The backspace key on my Lenovo keyboard is identical. And if I remember
correctly, it was the same key on an electrical typewriter I used in the 90s.

~~~
DanBC
On typewriters you would backspace and then overtype an X. Those keyboards
tend to just use the word "backspace" or a back arrow symbol.

So typewriters use this symbol when they automate the overstrike or they moved
to correction tape.

------
batiudrami
I always found it interesting that Sony swapped the X and O buttons for the
western Playstation market. In Japan X (batsu) does mean "back" or "no",
whereas elsewhere it is reversed.

~~~
gurkendoktor
Reminds me of how I use [x] to tick boxes in paper forms in Europe, but I was
told in Asia (Taiwan) that I should use a check-mark instead. x is no.

~~~
_delirium
I think check-for-yes, x-for-no is a fairly common convention in English as
well, just not in tick-box forms. You do see it in feature-comparisons grids a
lot, often with the check-mark colored green and the x colored red, to mix in
another convention. Example:
[http://prezi.com/pricing/](http://prezi.com/pricing/)

------
spacesword
They mention X and O on the PS controller but usually in games O is for no and
X is for yes. Completely opposite of the batsu/maru, incorrent/correct they
were discussing.

~~~
ntSean
In Japanese variants, he is correct. When Sony westernized the playstation
controller, the O and X functionality was flipped. Sony is yet to comment on
the reasons why.

~~~
teamonkey
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, which had A to the right and B at
te bottom. The N64 had a weird layout, but again B was to the left of A.

Sony probably focus tested the pad in the US and found that players were more
used to Sega's layout.

~~~
ANTSANTS
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 assume the button
closest to the player (X) would be the OK button. In practice, I have found
that people with very little exposure to Japanese culture still have the same
association with X and O in their heads and get confused when using
Playstations ("you press X to accept???"), so I'll curse Sony forever for this
stupid regional change.

~~~
teamonkey
This is almost certainly a result of intense focus testing, so I don't think
it would be a design choice by Sony based on cultural differences so much as
an observation of user comfort and expectations.

That's not to say that those expectations weren't due to cultural differences.

------
nwp90
No 'x' to close vi? Was that not always there? I've certainly been using it as
long as I can remember; that's not to say it's always been there though - does
anyone know when it was first available?

Edit: seems Wordstar used X too, probably starting in 1978.

~~~
atsaloli
Well, that's different. You are talking about an "x" that you type in, as
opposed to an "x" you can click on.

To answer your question, "x" (short for eXit) was available in vi from the
beginning:

ZZ Exits the editor. (Same as :xCR)

Source: Bill Joy's "An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi"
[http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/vi_editor__bill_joy.pdf](http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/vi_editor__bill_joy.pdf)

~~~
nwp90
Yes, it's different, but the article was trying argue that since "X" wasn't
used in that context at the time it was introduced as a GUI element, the GUI
element couldn't possibly be referencing the letter as a way of closing a
program. While I agree that it's unlikely that the GUI "X" refers to a letter
"X", that's not a valid argument for that position.

Edit: and thanks for the vi ref.

~~~
atsaloli
Understood, and you're welcome!

------
jzzskijj
Too bad, that popular Windows applications like Skype and Spotify have gone
against this and made "X to minimize". And their making of Alt+F4 also to
minimize drives me nuts.

~~~
antihero
X closes the _window_ not the _application_. The only intuition you need is to
realise that window !== application.

~~~
david927
That's not standard. If it's a one-window app, such as Skype, it should close
the app. BareTorrent is also sort of a daemon process (where you often want it
to live in the systray), and it follows standards. Minimize will put it in the
system tray and close actually closes it. It's standard and feels intuitive.

~~~
antihero
I don't think so - I find this very subjective - I've always assumed that X
just closes the window, even if it's a single window app. This is consistent,
just some applications happen to also run in the background.

~~~
coldtea
> _I 've always assumed that X just closes the window_

That was one of the old differences between Windows and OS X behavior (or app-
centric vs window-centric).

If you're reffering to Windows, then X usually closed the app too.

~~~
coldpie
> If you're reffering to Windows, then X usually closed the app too.

I think his point is the X closes the window, and many, but not all, Windows
applications also choose to quit when their (last) window is closed.

------
bluthru
What about crossing out dates or tasks?

[http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/88203236-calendar-with-
date...](http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/88203236-calendar-with-dates-
crossed-out-
gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=35VXefqbfky52bmcKHRgj0npKe9jkjCibt1WYq781dM%3D)

Or crossing-out an item to "delete" it on the page?

------
quux
NeXT had X buttons to close windows before windows 95, with a very similar
look to to win 95 window button styles too. I think NeXTStep 1.0 was in 1989
or thereabouts.

------
panzi
It's not X, it's ❌. (90° angle of the two lines) I always hate it when someone
actually uses an X. Looks ugly.

------
kentosi
I recall being mildly shocked when Windows 95 came out with the the [x]
button. I don't know why, but I thought that it was somewhat dangerous to
allow users to quickly exit an application like this.

Maybe it's because I was used to Windows 3.11, where you had to actually
double-click the [-] button to exit an application.

~~~
mnw21cam
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.

~~~
atrilumen
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.

~~~
mnw21cam
That's actually not such a bad idea. I have just a single pixel border around
the left/right/bottom at the moment, just so I can see the edge of overlapping
terminal windows. I have to say I wouldn't miss the titlebar much either.

------
bemmu
In the Atari TOS screenshots, other icons such as arrows are black on white
background.

If the icons in upper left and right are also like that, then the upper left
icon is actually four little triangles pointing inwards and not an X. The one
on the right is four little triangles pointing outwards.

(Or it could be an X)

~~~
empressplay
Atari ST users seemed to see it as an X -- so whether or not it was
intentional on the part of the designer, it's not that hard to see how one of
these users could have then translated that misconception to the Windows 95
GUI. It's all about perception...

------
riveteye
UPDATED:

So this little article has travelled pretty far! There were a lot of good
tips, comments and insights into the origin of [x] but none as good as this
email that I received from Windows 95 team member Daniel Oran.

“Hi Lauren,

A friend forwarded me your Medium piece, “X to Close.” He remembered that I
had worked on Windows 95 at Microsoft — I created the Start Button and Taskbar
— and thought I’d be amused. I was! :-)

It’s fun to see how history gets written when you actually lived those long-
ago events. I joined Microsoft in 1992 as a program manager for the user
interface of “Chicago,” which was the code name for what eventually became
Windows 95.

So, who was responsible for this last minute change? As far as I can tell,
this person is responsible for the proliferation and widespread use of [x] in
UI design today.

It wasn’t a last-minute change. During 1993, we considered many variations of
the close-button design. And the source wasn’t Atari. It was NeXT, which had
an X close button in the upper right, along with the grayscale faux-3D look
that we borrowed for Windows 95.

I wanted to put the Windows X close button in the upper left, but that
conflicted with the existing Windows Alt-spacebar menu and also a new program
icon, which we borrowed fromOS/2, on which Microsoft had originally partnered
with IBM.

Attached is the earliest Chicago bitmap I could find that includes an X close
button. It’s dated 9/22/1993\. (In attaching the file to this email, I just
realized that it’s so old that it has only an eight-character name. Before
Windows 95, that was the limit.)

Thanks for your very entertaining essay!

Best,

Danny”

I guess you could say case [x]ed.

Thanks again to everyone who helped track down earlier examples of GUIs and
early text editors that used [x] to close as well. Fascinating!

------
BorisMelnik
Windows 95 was the first time I remember using it, and I have been using PC's
since TRS model 80. It makes sense, X means "stop" in most cases and stop
essentially means close or terminate a process / app.

~~~
kalleboo
> It makes sense, X means "stop" in most cases

I'm trying to think of any cases where this is true. Stop signs aren't
crosses, they have a special shape.

------
pjmlp
Windows versions prior to Windows 95 lacked an "X" button, but double clicking
on the left menu icon would close the window.

A behavior still present in modern versions.

------
pjlegato
The use of the X symbol to mean "cancel, close" isn't nearly so mysterious as
the author claims. "Cross off" and "cross out" are common phrases in English,
and traditionally denoted by an X symbol (the "cross").

There is no reason to suppose that the GUI usage was inspired in any way by
exotic Japan. The X as "cancel symbol" has been quite common in the west and
indeed worldwide for millenia.

------
crystaln
If I recall, clicking on the X on old Macs added an X inside the square, so I
think there's a step missing from this article.

~~~
scelerat
It wasn't really an X, more "stretch marks" to visually indicate the mouse-
down event.

~~~
crystaln
Odd they didn't use such stretch marks anywhere else.... except perhaps check
boxes.

------
markmontymark
"Vi, vim, emacs or edlin?

No [x] to close these 1980's text editors either. X was commonly used to
delete characters in-line, but not to close the program."

Hmm... I've used :x to write+quit in Vim for years. And, :X is to
encrypt+quit. Don't have a year when that was added though. Could be fun to
try and dig that up.

~~~
oftenwrong
>Hmm... I've used :x to write+quit in Vim for years. And, :X is to
encrypt+quit. Don't have a year when that was added though. Could be fun to
try and dig that up.

:x (short for :xit) was in the original ex written by Bill Joy in 1976.
According to Joy[1], ex pulled together ideas from a few different places:

1\. em from QMC, written by George Coulouris[2]

2\. a modified version of ed from UCLA

3\. An early version of ex written by Charles Haley based on the em source in
1976

4\. Bill Joy himself

em uses 'x' for its interactive find-and-replace mode ("e __x __change "), so
it didn't originate there. That leaves 2, 3, and 4 as possible origins. I
can't find anything on the UCLA ed. If the origins are in 3 or 4, :x is from
1976.

[1]
[http://roguelife.org/~fujita/COOKIES/HISTORY/1BSD/exrefm.pdf](http://roguelife.org/~fujita/COOKIES/HISTORY/1BSD/exrefm.pdf)

[2]
[http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~gc/history/](http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~gc/history/)

------
bane
Wow great article. I don't agree with his conclusion that it came from Japan.
But it's as good a reason as any I suppose.

One quick thing, IIR Windows 2.0 and 3.0, the '-' button in the upper left
wasn't "close". It was a small menu that happened to have close as an option.

~~~
Sharlin
You could double-click it to close, though. And of course the menu (and the
double-click-to-close functionality) is still there, it's just that the [-]
icon was replaced with the application's own icon. So contrary to the article,
the close button was _added_ in Win95, all the other elements are still there.

------
mambodog
If you want to see the UI of GEM for yourself, here's an in browser emulator
of an Atari ST with GEM:

[http://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/atari-st/](http://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-
js/atari-st/)

------
baq
OS/2 gets pretty close with a [ / ]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2#mediaviewer/File:Os2W4.png](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2#mediaviewer/File:Os2W4.png)

~~~
wolfgke
This is a screenshot from OS/2 Warp 4, which was released after Windows 95
(source:
[http://www.os2museum.com/wp/?page_id=132](http://www.os2museum.com/wp/?page_id=132)).
OS/2 Warp 3 that came before Windows 95 had the following set of Window
buttons:

[http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/os2warp3](http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/os2warp3)

------
kentaromiura
IIRC on windows 3.1 keyboard navigation X was always the key for exiting, as E
was already used for other things.

I clearly remember that for closing windows one could do alt+f4 (which was
itself a shortcut to Close) or open the file menu (Alt+F) and select eXit.

I can't check but I believe it was the same for Write and notepad as well and
any other programs that had the Exit option.

So maybe that's where the windows 95 developer took inspiration for the X icon

------
lukeh
Also: NEXTSTEP.

------
rangibaby
I had a non-technical friend who insisted it was an x because you used it to
"x it"

------
samdb
Someone in our office insists on calling closing a window 'crossing it off'.

------
brador
When we have completed a todo task we "cross it" to mark it done. i would say
the x to close is intended to represent a "crossing out" not the letter x. It
is pressed to signify a task has been completed.

~~~
klazutin
My thoughts exactly. Not being from exactly a Western culture (I'm Russian) I
always saw the X not as a letter but rather as a cross (Russians say "click
the cross to close the window"), a sign of deleting or cancelling something by
crossing it out. It made perfect sense so I never even thought there could be
other explanations. All because in our language there is no X-exit connection.

------
mschuster91
Lots of banner ads make the close symbol e.g. the second from right (swap
maximize and close) or swap the functions... thus exploiting muscle memory of
people to open the ad :/

------
EGreg
I think I remember that hitting the "close" button on early, black-and-white
macs would make a star appear in the square, signifying the press. Almost like
the X...

------
webkike
Perhaps it's not an icon, and was meant to indicate eXit. I know must use 'q'
for quit, but I've seen a few programs that use 'x'

------
edpichler
I'm not icon designer, but I just finished the hackdesign.org course (I
recommend it) and now I understand a little bit of it and now I always try to
think as one.

The [X] icon in graphic windows software (not in WordStar, Vim, etc), and not
thinking as a letter of the alphabet (remember that maximize and minimize
don't are also) but just as picture, it remembers me something collapsing.
Like something bigger in a normal state with the borders collapsing to a
center till disappear. As when you turn off and old CRT television (or an
Android powered cell phone).

~~~
edpichler
I'm still thinking on this... in design you don't think in one part alone, all
the context is important. The minimize represents the future state of the
window in the bottom bar, and the maximize represents the window occupying all
the available area.

I conclude these three icons are really good and well designed.

------
autokad
This is a great story, and I enjoyed the look back at all the different OS.
sadly if it happened today the x to close would have been patented.

------
jimmaswell
I'd always thought of it like the "crossing out" kind of gesture such as
drawing an X over something on paper.

------
boobsbr
What about using CTRL-X to exit DOS programs?

------
colmmacc
'X' always seemed fitting for another, more poetic, reason: The kiss of death
(X also represents a kiss). I wonder if it was in the designers mind.

------
enesunal
Well what you know about `windows` in GUI? What is the first appearence of the
`windows` based-GUI?

------
mjcohenw
I misinterpreted the title as "X Windows consortium to close."

~~~
arethuza
I'm glad I'm not the only person to think that (mind you this was over
breakfast and before much coffee).

I did think very briefly that it was something to do with X, then thought X
was a variable as in "$X to close".

------
Dewie
Mouse-wheel to scroll (to intro).

------
msie
For me, the pinnacle of Windows UI design has always been Windows 95.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
The best windows UI imho was Win2000. Best UI overall would still be OSX, also
imho.

------
minusSeven
Mind telling us why this is so important !

~~~
fit2rule
Because it is a design artifact that has survived decades, and here on HN
there are a significant number of people who are designing artifacts that they
hope will survive decades. Context is everything - for those people, this
article provides a little context. Yesterday's "X" to close is today's 'swipe
to close', and tomorrow's [___?___]. Solve for [___?___].

