Color button order--what gives?

Okay, this isn't really a question about remote programming, but about button layout "standards". Color buttons seem to be becoming increasingly common these days, I suppose that's a good thing for some (even though I rarely use them for anything). But what's up with the order of the color buttons?

I have in my current "frequent-access pile" several such remotes. However, they don't all present the color buttons in the same order. Now, this wouldn't be much of a surprise if they were different brands or I was buying equipment intended for different regions, but. . .

-Red-Green-Blue-Yellow-
Sony RMT-ADP036 (from BDP-CX7000ES BluRay Changer)
Sony PS3 BluRay (a Bluetooth remote for BD control on the PS3)

-Yellow-Blue-Red-Green
Sony PS3 BluRay Media (the new multi-device version that, in addition to BT-based control for the PS3, also has IR control for TV and AMP)
Sony RM-AAP055 (for STR-DN2010 AVR)
Sony RM-YD036 (for Bravia TV XBR-46HX929)
Charter UR4U-MDVR-CHD2 (for Motorola cable DVR/STBs)

Where do the different orders come from? Are they based on anything? How come Sony, the defend-a-format-forever corporation, has two different sequences? It doesn't even appear to be related to release dates--I think the new YBRG PS3 remote was just released a few weeks ago, while the older RGBY version may be of more recent issue than my YBRG AV remote.

No, not with one another, or even over time. But I do kinda expect an individual manufacturer who is touting the unified appearance of their remotes to at least *try* to be consistent with itself within the same product year.


Yeah, I kinda wonder if it wasn't something like that. However, all my YBR- remotes are *more recent* than the RGB ones. (I was wrong earlier about the first-edition PS3 remote being newer than my AVR remote--it has been out for about five years already.) Indeed, the PS3 remote even changed from RGBY to YBRG with the new version.

So, I think it might have gone the other way instead. A/V engineers (who, of course, can't imagine why anyone would ever arrange those colors in any order other than RGB) came up with a RGBY four-color-button remote, and the layout became too deeply embedded in the R&D division's design guidelines before Marketing and Consumer Support could convince them that the consumer market already has a strong preference for YBRG stemming from the inertia of YBR three-button remotes.

(Nah, I don't really think that. At least not with Sony. It's pretty obvious that the designers of remotes don't care a whole lot whether a user will have to re-train themselves to grow accustomed to a bunch of arbitrary changes in button placement.)


If they made a five-color-button remote, I think it would be simplest for everyone if they just appended the orange (or purple) button to the end of the sequence. But if they made the leap straight to six-color-button remotes, I expect that I would prefer chromatic order. ROYGBV is easier for me to remember than YBRGVO (or somesuch).

Actually, that many color buttons might make them pretty hard to distinguish. In fact, I suspect that the ease of visual differentiation between adjacent buttons is why the buttons on the YBRG go *across* the color wheel from one to the next, rather than *around* it. I suppose that pink might show up okay, though.

I heard years ago, but have not confirmed, that, in Mandarin, the scope of the common term for blue also includes green, which has no common term of its own. Of course, they *can* distinguish them visually, and certainly have discrete terms for specific hues within that range, but typically compound the term with modifiers if there is a need to differentiate blue from green verbally (kinda like how we can distinguish a pine tree from palm tree and do *have* discrete terms for them, but most commonly we refer to it as a "tree"). Maybe something like that had influence on button order (so as to avoid having "BLEEN" next to "BLEEN").