Why do you think Apple chose green for the caps and number lock keys?

[MOFS]

You're both very correct... the eye has three types of cells (cones) that see color -- one of them peaks in the red, one peaks in sensitivity in the yellow-green, and the last in the blue. But each has a broad band of sensitivity. Iif you take into account the density of each cell type (there are far fewer blue cells than the other two) and the sensitivity profiles, the eye is most sensitive to sort of lighter greens around where the lights are.

Also, interestingly, as there are far fewer blue cone cells (around 2% of all cone cells, I think) than red or green, and they're actually not located dead center on the focus spot of the retina, if you actually ever do see patterns (letters, etc), that are illuminated in just high-frequency blue light, it's *very* hard to make out what you're looking at, and it appears kind of ghosty, because you just don't have very many cone cells that can see this light in order to produce a strong perception of the pattern.

Also, though, the lights on the keys match the light on the power cable.

Tho' isn't red the most penetrating? I thought that was the reason red lights are used for stop signs, braking signs on a car etc.

 

[TequilaBoobs]

Tho' isn't red the most penetrating? I thought that was the reason red lights are used for stop signs, braking signs on a car etc.

red color can easily burn out your eyes after prolonged exposure, that's why most car interiors lack the color red. red is one of those colors that use a specific group of eye cells that cannot be read by other cells, thus reducing its efficacy after prolonged exposure. but it is arresting, and probably the most standout of colors (maybe yellow?)

 

[penter]

because green stands for prosperity and success.

ok, i have no idea. lol

 

[Aniej]

thats a hoax. at first the number of accidents went down when the red changed to green, but that was shown to be the result of a novelty effect. anything that surprises you will draw more attention.

Number of accidents going down is not necessarily correlated with being seen more readily in the night. My point is while inferentially being seen more easily would likely be a cause of accidents going down, but it is not dispositive of other factors such as the addition of new emergency light technologies (LED lights) or increased law enforcement measures that lowered accidents across the field.


Oh yea I also just kinda like green.

Media. who the heck lives in media..... just kidding, great name.

 

[mkrishnan]

thats a hoax. at first the number of accidents went down when the red changed to green, but that was shown to be the result of a novelty effect. anything that surprises you will draw more attention.

That's interesting! Do you have a source?

 

[Jiddick ExRex]

To the OP, what are you using the caps lock for a lot? It seems to me to be the most useless of alle the keys and I have it disabled since I hate having to retype a whole sentence if I accidentally turns it on...

 

[Ryan1524]

I would say red also stands out and cheap to produce as a LED. Notice how lots of car dashboard instruments are either green or red. they both have good visibility and not too irritating.

Mmm...red caps lock. I'm sensing a mod. or Red keyboard backlighting.
Yea, red keyboard backlight would be awesome.

 

[flir67]

I think it has more to do with the history of computers than anyone every imagined.

the apple IIe had a green light? why then at that time did they choose it??

green led has been chosen for computers for decedes and I bet its the cheapest to make at that time for the apple IIe, but as for now, maybe it just still works...

hummm

 

[lu0s3r322]

To the OP, what are you using the caps lock for a lot? It seems to me to be the most useless of all the keys and I have it disabled since I hate having to retype a whole sentence if I accidentally turns it on...

I was typing up this paper and I had this font I was using and the bigger letters looked better than the smaller ones. Go figure

 

[TequilaBoobs]

That's interesting! Do you have a source?

My professor of Learning and Motivation class told me of this phenomenom. If you check the stats, you'll notice initially accidents involving yellow-green trucks decreased as well as the severity of the accidents, when compared to their red counterparts. However, over time the rate climbed back to within an insignificant difference between the two. Psychologists would say this is the "novelty effect" to explain the initial decrease.

 

[Jay42]

All good reasons but i bet it was the cheapest May not seem like much, but when you sell millions....

 

[TequilaBoobs]

Number of accidents going down is not necessarily correlated with being seen more readily in the night. My point is while inferentially being seen more easily would likely be a cause of accidents going down, but it is not dispositive of other factors such as the addition of new emergency light technologies (LED lights) or increased law enforcement measures that lowered accidents across the field.


Oh yea I also just kinda like green.

Media. who the heck lives in media..... just kidding, great name.

Colorologists say there are certain colors easier for the human eye to detect, but when you have LED lights dancing all over the vehicle, I think that negates the importance of color-difference. In the studies involving fire-truck accidents, they measured the effect of color change on car accident frequency and severity, thus controlling for threats to internal validity such as increased law enforcement measures and LED lights.

And I thought the same before I moved to Media last year, "WTH"? But it's close to Philly so it's all good...

 

[mkrishnan]

Psychologists would say this is the "novelty effect" to explain the initial decrease.

Thanks! I'm familiar with novelty, but I didn't know it applied to this specific issue.

Articles like this that claim an actual effect are the only ones I'm familiar with.

But it's interesting, since certainly novelty type effects do seem to possibly be valid explanators.

There was an insurance study a few years ago also that suggested that certain car colors such as white had statistically lower accident rates. In a case like that, it's harder to use novelty as white is hardly a new car color.

But it's all very interesting. There're a lot of confounding factors.

 

[jellomizer]

Red Means Bad.
The Back Light is white
Blue LED are Expensive
I guess that leaves green.

 

[whateverandever]

I don't think it's as interesting or complex as many people here are making it :]

Green usually means go or on. Red usually means stop or off.

Hence they used green for on =p