now for a short word on where exactly i am coming from with the name itself. the root of it all is sony's betamax system, which was an ill-fated rival of VHS. the beta part of the name came from the way the tape spooled in the cassette, which looked like the greek letter beta. betamax tanked because it couldn't compete with VHS for recording time, even though it arguably produced a better quality picture.

the iota bit comes from me choosing a different letter from the greek alphabet. in english iota means "a very small amount", and this meaning arose from the Council of Nicaea, where a bunch of catholic types banged their heads together over various elements of the bible, most controversially whether the holy trinity literally meant that jesus was part of god. there was two conflicting greek translations of scripture, one with the word 'homoousios' would mean that jesus was of the same substance, while the other 'homoiousios', would mean that Jesus was of similar substance. this whole theological debate, which eventually lead to the backers of similar being excommunicated and branded as heretics all came back to one iota of difference.

so, for me the name is supposed to evoke dead technology and tiny but significant differences