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My Canon speedlights have always had a light on the back.  Green means NOT ready.  Red means ready.

I always think of green as GO, and Red as STOP.  Anybody know what the reasoning is behind this oddness on the Canon Speedlight Ready Light?

Nikon is even odder with the counterclockwise turn of installing their lenses.  Another Mystery that needs unraveling.

If I remember correctly, green means that the capacitor is charged enough to fire a single shot at the current setting, red means that the capacitor is fully charged and good for several shots.

What Jens said

Steve Cirone wrote:
Nikon is even odder with the counterclockwise turn of installing their lenses.  Another Mystery that needs unraveling.

I guess we will have to go back to whoever had the first interchangeable lens/ camera to see how they did it way back when (was it Nikon or Canon?). Then one has to assume they were right and the other manufacturer had it backwards.  Besides, if you hold the camera with the lens opening away from you to line it up,  Nikon is turning clock-wise, and Canon is counter clock-wise!  Hey, it's just a matter of how you got used to it anyway. I don't see any advantage either way. Clock-wise or counter clock-wise all depends on which direction you personally position the camera front to change lenses. I never have to look at the front of the camera (especially on a tripod) to line them up, so to me Nikon is clockwise! 

Mark Picard wrote:I guess we will have to go back to whoever had the first interchangeable lens/ camera to see how they did it way back when (was it Nikon or Canon?).

Interchangeable lens cameras were around long before Canon started as a producer of counterfeit Leica cameras, with Nikon - strictly a lens manufacturer back then - supplying the lenses. All those 19th century monster cameras with bellows had interchangeable lenses. Fixed lens cameras came much later.

This thread has shifted so I'll insert this thought.

Those "monster cameras" are called view cameras and for some types of photography (landscape, architectural, etc) have several advantages including swing backs and lens boards. Think tilt/shift/swing on both the film holder and the lens board.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_camera

These are also used in some studio applications particularly in some advertising studios to obtain weird effects or correct for difficult subject poses.