Why were Power PCs beige?

[barythrin]

Was there much variation/standards in mainframes/data center computing in the 70's/early 80's? I know lots of vendors seem to pick a color scheme and stick with it so it's somewhat easy to identify their gear. I would think that the business computer might take on the same color as the data center computers just to seem like a smaller but powerful computer.

I've never heard that before regarding a calming affect of beige but I believe it. I know that trick has been around for decades with the restaurant industry (fast food using red/yellow colors and fast music to get people to eat faster and get in and out). Yellow is a color that is supposed to make people happy (not sure I see that myself but psychology research says so). Tobacco white (beige) just reminds me of the work place and I don't think gives me any warm fuzzies.

The desktops we've had for the last few years (Dell then HP) have all been black and silver. I think that's a trend to look high-tech/metallic or something. Funny all the servers (Dell) have blue lights but one system we bought (huge SAN system) has green. We thought it was funny but yes it looks cool, but it looks sorta borgish. Turns out that's what the CEO of the SAN company liked about it, he liked green and in fact thought of the Borg when developing the system.

 

[DOS lives on!!]

I've never heard that before regarding a calming affect of beige but I believe it.

That's exactly why the Blue Screen of Death is blue. Blue has been proven to have the same calming affect. And also because when early versions of Windows had a catastrophic event, they'd drop down to a lower color scheme, and blue was second behind black.

Anyway, I think beige was just the computer case color of the time. Almost all the personal computers of the 90s were beige. But I don't feel any calmer using my Power Macintosh 5260.

 

[EverythingIBM]

The reason IBM used two tones of beige on its original IBM PCs was because the color does a pretty good job of hiding dust and dirt. And psychologically, that color scheme encourages feelings of safety and security. That's the reason landlords tend to paint rental properties in hues of beige.

In the mid 1980s, other companies adopted similar colors. Some sooner than others. By the mid 1990s, companies started trying other colors again.

Precisely!

PC clone manufacturers started copying IBM's beige trend, which ensued a whole slew of beige computers.

It's humorous to note how computers were black, then beige, and now black again. I wonder if the beige trend will start up again.

 

[tipc]

you know that is true. I have half of an Intel MDS system, and it was blue. Forgot all about that. But the 80s was the evil business decade. Computers had to get down to bidniss.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

Of course, these days we all know which company Apple is copying with their hardware designs and color schemes, chicklet keyboards and all.