Well, that may be true that the designers of the DOS font decided to do that (of course I wouldn't know because I've never typed a beta in a command window).
I looked on other sets, they've made them look like ß (the german letter), which is distinctly different then a lowercase beta. sure the beta would've fit among the alpha, pi, sigmas, omega, epsilon, delta, capital phi. The lowercase phi didn't look like a phi to me so I used ø (the Norwegian/Danish letter).
Of course, I live in the western world where Greek is only used in mathematics and physics. And the Germanic/Scandinavian symbols appear on my keyboard.
I might as well replace the eszett (beta *glare*), Theta, ø (lowercase phi), and lowercase sigma, with pictures of animal pelt, bed, thread spool, and anvil respectively since these symbols are never used for anything else. Correct me if I'm wrong please, but don't bite my head off.
One of my pet peeves is when they use pictures of an object for symbols that are used for more than one thing. There are supposed to be no chairs at the top of the waterfall, and what's this throne dong in on this bridge - it doesn't belong here; Or go on journeys into the evil purple cabinet lair; my fortress has a population of 50 not 5 caskets. And my friend, Remón doesn't want his name spelled as R-e-m-lever-n. </rant>
Although, my way has six legged lizards and bats that look like beetles, but still the symbols for the seeds and vermin before were almost indistinguishable before.
But still, this design looks right to me, and its all a matter of personal preference.
[ October 20, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]