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Why were Power PCs beige?

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facattack

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Fun little thread.

I think they were beige so when they got old, the dust wouldn't be blamed for the ugly color of the plastic! I forget what model Power PC this was, but I saw them in 1998 and sorta fell in love.
 
Compgeke said:
I would assume because Beige was cheap, why else would every other computer of the time be beige also?
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Computers stopped being beige at the time Apple went to beige. IBM moved over to black; Gateway 2000 changed cases to off-white; Packard Bell went for grey. I thought the true reason was Apple ran out of good ideas and was stuck doing whatever IBM used to do. Had Michael Spindler stayed in charge for a few more years, Apple would have introduced an official punch card reader to improve enterprise compatability.
 
Apple moved to the 'beige' color in 1987 with the introduction of the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II. Its official name was "Platinum", to differentiate it from 'beige' color that was the official color of all previous Macintoshes.

The same "Platinum" color later got retro-renamed "beige" when more colorful systems started coming out.
 
Anonymous Freak said:
Apple moved to the 'beige' color in 1987 with the introduction of the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II. Its official name was "Platinum", to differentiate it from 'beige' color that was the official color of all previous Macintoshes.

The same "Platinum" color later got retro-renamed "beige" when more colorful systems started coming out.
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No, "Platinum" on Macs is a light grey (same as on the Apple IIGS.) If you've seen beige-colored Mac IIs and SEs, it's because of plastic discoloration.

Macs before the II and the SE were beige, though, and I think the Classic and Classic II were as well.
 
commodorejohn said:
No, "Platinum" on Macs is a light grey (same as on the Apple IIGS.) If you've seen beige-colored Mac IIs and SEs, it's because of plastic discoloration.

Macs before the II and the SE were beige, though, and I think the Classic and Classic II were as well.
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No, Apple went through several colours over the years.

II/II+/non-numeric keypad IIes - beige
IIc - white
IIc+/IIGS - platinum

Mac (128k)/Fat Mac (512k)/Mac Plus (early) - beige
Mac Plus (late)/Mac SE/Mac SE30/Mac II/IIx/IIfx/IIcx/IIci/IIsi/ (blah blah blah) - platinum

I think until the B&W G3 when Apple went "ice crazy" all the machines were platinum.
 
Regardless of the later systems being called "Platinum" they were "beige" in practice. They may have been "Light metallic gray" right out of the box but a combination of light exposure and dust rendered them "light brown" within a year or two in every setting I ever observed them in. (Offices, labs, etc.)

Anyway, when discussing computers just about any case color from off-white to medium brown is generically referred to as "Beige". (I don't know if the "Antique White" of IBM's PS/2s qualifies or not, but I'd say the dividing line is somewhere between them and "Platinum" Macs.) Not sure what good it does to split hairs.
 
Well, Apple had the IIe Platinum, so obviously that color was probably their term too. I was sorta thinking that perhaps they wanted to enter the office marketplace vs home and mimicked their PC brethren? Although again, I'm not quite sure if there was any research published regarding computer color schemes, or if it was a laziness combined with the natural plastic color, or if it held up well vs other colors fading under office light, etc. i.e. take a look at news paper clippings under the fluorescent office light glow over years, looks similar to a smokers computer.
 
My Mac classic is platinum as well as my Mac LC. If I recall correctly, this generation is when apple made a complete switchover from beige to platinum till the imac... TBH alot of the accessories were beige, so why not have the computers match. Seems like a logical answer to me.
 
I saw this in a DEC section on Usenet many years ago:

"Beige shall be the colour of computers and the colour of computers shall be beige. Grey shalt it not be, neither shalt it be white, excepting that it then is painteth beige. Black is right out. Once the colour beige, being the colour of computers, be achieved, then thou shalt distributeth thy miscoloured components into the possesion of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."
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-Tor
 
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.
 
commodorejohn said:
No, "Platinum" on Macs is a light grey (same as on the Apple IIGS.) If you've seen beige-colored Mac IIs and SEs, it's because of plastic discoloration.

Macs before the II and the SE were beige, though, and I think the Classic and Classic II were as well.
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Sorry for the confusion in my statement, I did mean Platnium, but then referring to the fact that many people called "Platinum" Macintoshes "beige" later on. (Even brand-new ones, not plastic discolored ones.) Having owned many from brand new to now-antique, I can attest to the "Platinum" color not being gray, but having a slightly yellowish-brownish tint to it. AKA, "beige". The older "Beige" Macs and Apples had a decidedly more brownish tint to it.
 
I thought Macs went beige during the period when they had lost any obvious uniqueness, so they adopted a puritanical policy that you should not love them for the outward appearance, only for their inner Apple-ness.

When Steve Jobs returned, we got the iMac eye-candy principle (I have 3 candy iMacs and a white eMac), and now everybody loves their Apple gadget above all for its outward appearance.

Less spiritual, more worldly.:cool:
 
Dave Farquhar said:
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.
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IBM's beige was the accepted business environment color, that incidentally they must have instituted. You might say they gave it as much color/hue as they could get away with.

On other computers, if not beige, then what? Imagine a red computer in the 80's? Blue? Green? Way too funky or avant garde. The "eggshell" of the Tandy 2000 and Mindset and a number of others were drop dead gorgeous to me. It might just be that I fell sort of in love w/Tandy computers, being they were so well "advertised' in their giveaway catalogs. I used to drool. And when BYTE reviewed the T2K, they dubbed it's color an "attractive eggshell white", which sort of captured the visual flava of the Tandy computers nicely. The Mindset was high art in those days, and they didn't depart from the eggshell/beige pattern. Too much color probably would have made units look toyish?

Incidentally the Atari ST line was bluish, or is it just my eyes? More gray then anything. Another hot looking unit.

What, wasn't it the NEXT that broke all the trends? The Canon Cat was eggshell more or less. Don't call that beige, it's not. Amiga was a darker beige if you will. Not too much color, except perhaps in MSX boxes in those days. Can't think of much anyway.
 
tipc said:
On other computers, if not beige, then what? Imagine a red computer in the 80's? Blue? Green? Way too funky or avant garde.
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Not so much in the '80s, but in the mid-late '70s early hobbyist computers were all over the map: blue, orange, black, wood-grain...any number of shape styles, too.
 
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