The origin of DirectX green
SoftwareHave you ever wondered where the X and green colour for DirectX came from? Former Windows game evangelist Alex St John gave the lowdown for Shack News in 2007:
The original codename for Direct X was “the Manhattan Project,” because strategically it was an effort to displace Japanese game consoles with PCs and ultimately the Xbox. We called it “The Manhattan Project” because that was the codename for the program developing the nuclear bomb. We had a glowing radiation logo for the prototype for Direct X, and of course as soon as that got out and the press covered it, it caused a scandal.
And Steve Jobs said Microsoft [has no taste], can you believe it? Then there’s the self-defeating, Morissettian-irony that Cerenkov radiation glows a PlayStation-blue.
In their defence, Microsoft PR came down hard on them for it.
