The book also talks about how IBM wanted the ThinkPad's TrackPoint eraser-head mouse to be blue, because that was IBM's signature color ("Big Blue") and because as I mentioned in the video, red was only supposed to be used for emergency stop buttons. The ThinkPad design team got around this by insisting that the TrackPoint was actually "magenta", not red, and they held their ground through arguments about the definition of magenta, so ultimately it was approved.

@WedgeBob

6 жыл бұрын

Interesting... I know that IBM also made a desktop keyboard with that TrackPoint later on in their Model M line, if I'm not mistaken, I remember LGR doing a review video on that.

@vwestlife

6 жыл бұрын

When it was originally designed in the late 1980s, the TrackPoint was originally intended for desktop keyboards, as a competitor to the mouse. But the mouse was already so popular by the time that IBM abandoned the idea, until it was revived for use in the ThinkPad (and ultimately later in desktop keyboards, as well).

@WedgeBob

6 жыл бұрын

Good to know. Also, I was reminded that it was the M13 Keyboard that had this, I knew it was something in the M line, but...yeah. Couldn't even find ONE of those on eBay, unfortunately.

@northhankspin

6 жыл бұрын

VWestlife no, the idea was just for the space saver model m so save even more space. Even though later they did make a full board version.

@iMadrid11

6 жыл бұрын

VWestlife Here’s my funny story about the Trackpoint button. My then 3 yr. old nephew pulled that thing off the Thinkpad and it was missing for maybe a week or two. When the kid started crying and complaining about some pain. His mother took him to the doctor. The pediatrician at first sight knew exactly what’s wrong and it also comes a distinct smell that something was stuck up his nostrils. It was the missing Trackpoint button. It was funny when they asked him how did it up inside his nose? He said “I don’t know. I didn’t put it there”

youtube content 2017 = watching a man read a book

@Thiesi

6 жыл бұрын

Cyranek Interestingly enough though, this video still beats 80% of the other content on KZread (increase that to 99.9% for channels with more than 500k subscribers).

@dentron9885

6 жыл бұрын

Jesus christ I see you everywhere I go, are you me?

@briantaylor9701

6 жыл бұрын

You have yourself to blame for watching it and then commenting, lol j/k. You never quite know what the hell will be interesting until you try it, it would appear...

@darkplant

6 жыл бұрын

Or people playing video games and telling us exactly what they're doing."I'm going out" "I'll run to that place" etc., also reading the texts from the game. KZread is for functionally illiterates.

@tremorlok6659

6 жыл бұрын

At least this guy cites his sources.

Now I'll have something to talk to the girl at parties about. When I get invited to one.

@themadman6310

3 жыл бұрын

Did you get invited to one?

@mikeg1433

Жыл бұрын

@@themadman6310 I’ll bet it was one hell of a party. He never looked back.

He's like the Bob Ross of computers. I could just listen to him talk all day. Makes me feel like I don't have a care in the world.

This color was most often referred to as "putty". In that era, I did alot of bulk purchasing of cubicle parts, shelving, desks and accessories, and that was the predominant color!

50 shades of beige

@davisdavis468

6 жыл бұрын

Kinky

@erik8624

6 жыл бұрын

Sounds like that would only be a constant 2nd base. Sad!

@wascawywabbit0987

6 жыл бұрын

Ha ha! I'm a house painter and I've seen that!

@ChallengeTheNarrative

6 жыл бұрын

😄

@keithlugosi398

4 жыл бұрын

Makes me think of that music video by Benny Benassi kzread.info/dash/bejne/lGylpLezkZTWf5M.html

Ah, so it IS true! I had heard somewhere that some kind of unspecified DIN standard caused everything to turn beige, but I never knew whether that was true or not. Nice video!

@lucasrem

6 жыл бұрын

Chyrosran22 Siemens and Brawn did some great office designs, Apple is selling you that design now, a blue print copy of the user interface of any Brawn product. In the 80th, computer systems were still massive ugly junk. All the safety regulation are from a later area. What if parties as Google start hiring designers, or do something good? now is the Free crap online area, not the best of times for high tech!

@Guckundhorsch

6 жыл бұрын

lucas rem 'Braun'! ;-). en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braun_(company)

@jedihunter176

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah! I remember having some OLD computer equipment that was originally white, and coming back to it years later and noticing it had yellowed. Apparently this is due to a flame retardant embedded in the plastic that made it turn yellow when it decayed.

Nobody in the techtuber world would have thought to do a video on this topic. And yet it works.

The funny thing is: The complete opposite was the case for cameras, audio equipment and home electronics. In the 70s they were still grey or beige, by the mid-80s they switched to black (because it was considered “the color of professionals”) and by the mid-90s they started to produce grey/silver cases again (VCRs, TVs, etc.).

@ryouskye

6 жыл бұрын

And here I am, with my orange digicam.

In 1995 I had an all black PC...i don't remember who made it now. Maybe Micron? And I specifically wanted that color and tracked it down.

I remember the IBM ThinkPad. My brother used to have it since I was still in my late teens when we have internet connection like a modem, but I still remember Windows 98 which was much of the same as the Windows 95, but it had features than the Windows 95 did at the time. We had AOL, but not anymore. I remember the voice of AOL where he says "You got mail!" Those were great times when we had AOL. I also remember the Apple IIgs when I was in school back in the early 1990's when schools had the Apple IIe computers for fun and learning games. I used to played "Oregon Trail", "Pick-A-Dilly Pair", "Wheel Of Fortune" and others. I missed those days when we had computers.

Reminds me of a scene in Americal Psycho, where couple of managers were competing over who has the coolest off-white tone of his business card - the egg shell white vs bone white... Having something like a black business card would be considered heresy in these circles.

Great Video. I worked for IBM New Zealand in the 90s. I remember we had a booth at a large computer show and had managed to get some standard PS/2 screens in black to attach to the Thinkpads on display. The crowd went wild!! Every second person visiting the IBM booth wanted to buy a black screen. Pity we only had three.

"Purdy good book" lol

@jaylaabraham6858

6 жыл бұрын

came to the comment section to specifically look for a comment referring that. lol

The book is right about the German/European workplace standards but misses the original reason for the standards. It was an ergonomics issue, specifically eye strain and fatigue. Quick History: Large corporations started to buy mainframe computers in the 70's to do all their calculations and predictions. But there was one big problem! All their data was on paper in filing cabinets. So through the 70's and early 80's they hired thousands of file clerks to input paper data into mainframe computers using connected terminals. Each terminal would have a copy holder mounted beside the monitor that held letter/legal size paper. So you had someone sitting in front of a terminal reading black text on a bright white paper all day, every day - across the majority of developed nations - millions of workers. Germany had very strong labor unions and were concerned about worker safety. They regulated many things around workplace ergonomics. In this case, they were concerned about constant refocusing between black text on white and white text on black, since the majority of early keypads were almost all black with white text. So they implemented standards that dictated an acceptable contrast ratio between text and background - that would be a better match for black text on white paper. As desktop computers started to take over from connected terminals the strict contrast ratio was still applied. The result was that in order to sell in Germany (and as a consequence - Europe), computer manufacturers had to follow the standards. At the time, white plastics were too hard to maintain so computer companies used shades of beige with dark text on the keyboards. This is why all computers in the early 80s were beige without exception. By the mid 80's everyone was starting input data directly into their own desktop computers so there was no longer any need to have hundreds of file clerks transcribing large amounts of paper documents. Which meant the core issue went away but the standards hung on - so most computers remained beige through the 1980’s. Of course there were two flaws with the original logic - good typists don't look at the keyboard and all display monitors until the mid 80's were black with green text. But this did not stop Germany/Europe from implementing the standards. Eye fatigue was a big concern at the time and a number of companies were working to improve screen colors to reduce eye fatigue. By the mid eighties screens were all moving to black text on white (Starting with Xerox and Apple). How do I know this? I worked as an industrial designer in the early 1980’s for NCR corporation and we had a design for a new terminal that had a dark facia and keyboard and light body color. We were forced to change to beige to meet the standards and we weren't happy about it. So I was very familiar with this issue. Hope you find this interesting. Graham

There was one renegade company in the UK, who preferred black - Sinclair, apart from the ZX80, the rest of the line, ZX81, Spectrum (Timex brand) including their PC Clone (After Amstrad bought their company), was black. I thought they were ahead of their time in design, the Spectrum, with its black case and rainbow decal was sublime...

@nikgnomic8867

6 жыл бұрын

There was another earlier one Tandy TRS80 was originally silver and black. But for later models the beige replaced the silver

I find it kind of funny that the picture you use for the thumbnail is the IBM PS/2 Lineup, which generally werent beige, but more of an eggshell white. They (for the majority spare a few varieties) didnt yellow over time because they were painted and didnt use the same fireproof plastics that react with UV light.

In an aircraft cockpit all the emergency switches are red, normal ones have different colors, so making those buttons red makes some sense.

@statinskill

6 жыл бұрын

The control panel on a server in a datacenter can be just as important as any switch or button on your aircraft.

@birddaddydetta

6 жыл бұрын

statinskill Relatively, yes

@statinskill

6 жыл бұрын

Raven R Death is not nearly as bad as being poor in this world.

@2Fast4Mellow

6 жыл бұрын

Today 's computers with ATX power supplies don't really have an off switch. Most power supplies do have an AC power button, but normally most people won't use them. On ATX you have an ordinary low voltage pulse button that sends a signal to you're motherboard. For most people this turn their computer on or off, but you can also set it up so it hibernates you're computer.. However in the AT power supplies days (back when we had ISA expansion slots) you actually used an AC switch to turn the computer on or off. Windows 95 even had a message saying that it was safe to turn off the computer (without the risk of loosing unsaved data to disk). So even on the old computers the red button was for safety. Remember the PC was than something you had on the side. Watering plants or having drinks on top of you're monitor or desktop case made it easy to spill. Liquids and electronics don't mix..

this video was nice. the guy took the time to elaborately show us the source of his proposition. so much info vids just tell you 'facts' without stating any sources.

That's why this is one of my favorite youtube channels. That was some awesome story, I mean, history. Thanks.

I always liked the beige color. It just feels more natural to work with in a office setting

Huh, interesting. Always wondered why they were all that dull cream / grey colour.

I am really thinking about buying that book. I am a true Thinkpad lover. The law about beige office equipment really seems to be still in use here in Germany, as most desks in schools, especially in the computer cabinets, are beige, (apart from many wood/woodgrain desks). Most office monitors we use do have that ugly color as well. That really was a stupid law in my oppinion

@leerwesen

6 жыл бұрын

The office I worked at has blue, gray and black equipment and chairs and stuff. They do have wood IKEA shelves though.

Regarding the depiction of the PC in offices on TV during this time, I suspect the fact that they were not turned on has less to do with representing their place in the work environment, and more to do with avoiding distracting screen flicker.

@vwestlife

6 жыл бұрын

Plenty of TV shows were able to have CRTs on camera without any visible flicker -- all they needed to do was to set the camera's shutter speed to match the monitor's refresh rate.

@davidherbst

6 жыл бұрын

True, but that is not so simple an adjustment as it sounds. In addition to taking time, which is always at a premium on a TV shoot, it cascades into lighting adjustments. Directors would typically only have reason to bother with this if the CRT was a practical prop. Otherwise, they are spending their time and effort on set dressing rather than whatever is the focus of the scene. The simplest solution would be to just not turn them on.

@MilwaukeeF40C

6 жыл бұрын

How did they do it in Jurassic Park?

The fabled beige era

I have always wanted to know about this, thanks.

It was a conspiracy to sell retrobrite!!

@utubewatcher806

6 жыл бұрын

Nope, it was a conspiracy to make the !990's PowerMac's seem like "awesome" technology designs...

@newkfromrotterdam

6 жыл бұрын

don't like retrobrite... all that beautyfull, painstakingly accumulated tan to be removed... makes me sad trying to enjoying sights of old computers when suddenly they start to look new again.

@HelloKittyFanMan.

6 жыл бұрын

LOL, no, because Retr0brite is a free-license procedure!

I like how even back then, they knew that chiclet keyboards were absolute garbage. AND THEN THEY HAD TO SCREW IT ALL UP.

@germaineliew2012

6 жыл бұрын

AROAH Entertainment Blame Lenovo for that.

I just stumbled upon this video and decided to watch. Thank you! I just love odd little bits of arcane info, and this totally fits the bill. Good stuff!

They aren't 'old' computers; they are 'classic' computers ;)

In the beginning of the 1990ies germany's retail brand "Escom" wanted to market desktop and tower pcs in solid black color. Perhaps it was even as early as 1989, i do not recall the exact date. And they got beaten by this notorious regulation as well. they had to market their machines as "not for office use" too. but they stood by that, since it was their corporate design from day one as they started "for the home musician/gamer corner". (and later they were the unlucky guys to bought the remains of commodore amiga, folding up their complete business.)

@TheRealJohnHooper

6 жыл бұрын

Escom pcs had such a great design

@hermannschaefer4777

6 жыл бұрын

Escom died because of bad economic decisions. They underestimated the speed of development and had way to much old stuff on stock. Their factory outlet was.. big.. very big.. I remember thousands of old graphic cards sold for literally nothing.

I just came here from Technology Connections who was asking why office equipment was always beige. An interesting video about something I never realised. The funny thing is that back in the 80s a friend had this most amazing Psychedelic pattern office chair. He said that back in the early 70s it was standard issue for Britain's Government owned Post Office Telephones, who obviously wanted to appear to not be stuck in the 1950s. p.s back in the Noughties I had a really nice, matt black IBM monitor.

My Timex/Sinclair 1000 from 1981 is black. One of my buddies at school had a Texas Instruments TI-99 computer that had a brushed aluminum look to it IIRC. And the Atari 800XL was black, too.

@KuraIthys

6 жыл бұрын

I owned two Atari 800 XL systems. I wouldn't call them black by any means. They're mostly beige in fact. I mean, technically the keyboard is black, and the surface, but the bulk of the body of the system is beige. All the accessories are mostly beige (plotter, tape drive, etc.) It's a beige system with black and chrome accents.

@RCAvhstape

6 жыл бұрын

I lusted after an Atari 800 back in the day. Mainly for the games, but also because I wanted to program a machine that could do sound and color. Now I am nostalgic for Atari and geek out over seeing the logo in Blade Runner 2049. But my Sinclair still works and I learned how to program with it, and it's black all over, so I gotta love it.

@misterhat5823

6 жыл бұрын

Not all TI-99's were silver. Beige was the norm for the 99/4A.

@johnfrancisdoe1563

6 жыл бұрын

Mister Hat Ours was black with a semi-shiny metal cover. The optional expansion stuff was also metal, but none of it was shiny chrome.

@waholt

6 жыл бұрын

Mister Hat, It wasn't the norm until TI started taking on Commodore 64 and the IBM Peanut in the great computer wars of the early 80's. By the height of it, you could buy one TI, get 9 free. ;-) They had to cut costs of the polished metal by switching to the beige plastic. The TI-99/4A I own and still in the original box, now put away in a closet, has the shiney metal case.

I want a smartphone case in this classic beige. It actually invokes a feeling of warmth and innocence when I look at it.

The beige answer is = Originally thought that a white plastic would help with increased definition for both the keyboard but more importantly the monitor - particularly as the monitor bezels were quite heavy. BUT the white soon discoloured and so they toned the colour to a non noticeable tone of beige...

One mistake that David Hill would remember (Together with Gavin O'Hara) is the 2013 "Thinkpad" (Is basically the Edge series) chicklet keyboard scandal that replaced the normal Thinkpad keyboard to a chicklet one and they did a merge of the Trackpoint's buttons into the clickpad just to be closer to an Apple kind of design, thus infuriating any Thinkpad user in that moment that they were buying it from many years Here is the source if you guys wanna read: blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/why-you-should-give-in-to-the-new-thinkpad-keyboard Then he regretted this and the Thinkpad's of these days do have a keyboard that is a normal one instead of a chicklet one iirc

@nikuw

6 жыл бұрын

They still use chiclets, but they are by far the best chiclet keyboards available. If only they realized that the perfect laptop keyboard is their chiclet ThinkPad design with the classic T420 layout...

@Mr1p0d

6 жыл бұрын

Yes, same I say about the one on my E440 but still I miss the older Thinkpad keyboards, had a 600E and the keyboard was a nice one BTW :3

@AFluffyMobius

6 жыл бұрын

Maybe its just me, but i dont understand how people think the older and newer style keyboards are any different. Neither are mechanically "chicklet", and both are scissor-type. The only difference are the key-face shapes. The travel and feel are the same. iirc if you take the key's out of both new and old style, they are exactly the same underneath. The bigger issue i think is the move from 7 to 6-row. I do agree about the single-clickpad thing, those were disgusting to use.

I'm 20 years old and tbh, I always just assumed computer monitors, keyboards and the like were just dirty and stained, and were originally white 😂.

@GraveUypo

6 жыл бұрын

you're not wrong. plastic yellows with time. new computers were more of a gray than the ugly beige they end up being.

@archravenineteenseventeen

6 жыл бұрын

our old pc ended up like that

TBH the only thing where I'm really picky about the color is my keyboard - something light with durable, high-contrast lettering all the way (a bicolor scheme is nice, too, structures things a bit better). Black makes it hard to make out the spaces between keys under nonideal lighting, resulting in Dancing Letters Syndrome if your eyesight is less than steady and you're not a genuine touch typist, both of which happen to apply. Beige, while of limited optical appeal, is practical in the sense that it won't make a bit of yellowing too obvious. It's scary to think that my keyboard is now over 20 years old (and has been with me for half that) and my (once-white) mouse is pushing on 15.

I had a Commodore CDTV (basically an Amiga 500 with 1MB of RAM and a CD-ROM drive). That was a black computer released in 1991, but it was intended to be placed alongside hifi equipment (i.e. consumer electronics rather than office electronics) hence it was designed not to visually clash with the other kit.

@vwestlife

6 жыл бұрын

Commodore actually insisted that the CDTV be sold in the audio/video equipment section and not in the computer section of retailers, and that salesmen should make no mention of its Amiga compatibility. Just some of the reasons why it was a total flop...

sir, i'd never heard of your channel before, but i got 22 seconds in and i subbed simply because this seems like the kind of channel i will binge watch and learn a lot from :) :) :) :)

I had wondered this myself, but hadn't looked into it. Our 1991 Gateway 2000 PC had an XT style case, and a big read power switch on the side. I had remembered that commercial as one for a PowerBook! The "tall" screen laptop seemed to be a poke at the L40.

As I write this, there are already 147 comments posted, and I haven't read them all, so my comment may be repetitive. I also have not read the book, so it's possible that it is mentioned there that the real reason for "beige" computers is that personal computers were introduced at the height of the popularity of "almond" desktop telephones, and desktop computers were supposed to match that color. IBM was considered the best brand of desktop computer for business, and all other brands were trying to capture some of IBM's market share. Thus came the proliferation of various shades of beige. In fact, black telephones were considered "old school," and no computer manufacturer wanted to share in that characterization. As desktop telephones moved away from almond (or vanished altogether,) the need for beige computers was eliminated.

@twoshedsjackson6478

6 жыл бұрын

I'm not Chuck. - All that typing and still wrong, hilarious.

@BixbyConsequence

6 жыл бұрын

The heck with the comments, man. Did you even watch the video?

people who work with precise colors tend to make more errors when using screens with black frames around it thats why many monitors used for color correction have light colored frames around the screens.

The reference the Jay Bell's books surprised me! Glad to find a fellow fan!

Great informational vid! Thank you!

The phone that was at the end of the video looks like a interesting product to show off.

@kbhasi

6 жыл бұрын

Pretty sure that ad was sourced from somewhere else on KZread, and the original uploader recorded it from a VHS tape, and didn't properly trim the video. Happens often with these old adverts that have been uploaded here.

@fixman88

6 жыл бұрын

That’s a Motorola ‘flip phone’ from the mid 1990s. I remember when they first came out (they cost $1000, no joke; there was a reason they were only used by the wealthy and business executives back then). They were a HUGE leap over the previous ‘brick phones’ and ‘bag phones’ (which were basically car phones with a 12 volt battery pack in a bag you could carry around).

Is there any way to get this book online (buy or download) ? There is no way to get a paper copy for anyone outside the US..

@vwestlife

6 жыл бұрын

There are multiple copies available on eBay from sellers who do ship internationally.

Very interesting. I actually like beige/white/pearl colours for computers. I think it looks very neat and easy on the eye for some type of electronics.

Amazingly, I'm old enough to remember that commercial at the end.

I totally want to buy a ThinkPad now.

@chrwl007

6 жыл бұрын

Do it - there's a reason why they are so popular, and it's not only for the way they look.

@louiehorwood660

6 жыл бұрын

Perfect timing, for a limited time you can get a 2017 model thinkpad.

@MrGeocidal

6 жыл бұрын

Doesn't every year have a Thinkpad? Or are you referring to the 25th anniversary Thinkpad?

@louiehorwood660

6 жыл бұрын

I'm referring to the 25th anniversary thinkpad, sorry

@chaos.corner

6 жыл бұрын

I've owned many brands of laptop and since I bought a Thinkpad, it's all I buy now. You should check out Louis Rossman's take on the 25th anniversary thinkpad before buying that though.

Interesting info! Thanks!

when every I think about the old white/beige computers. I think about how people who would smoke near them and that would turn them piss yellow or brown from the nicotine.

@crasheffort

6 жыл бұрын

ModPallet some yellowed without anyone smoking near them, ironicly, because they had an additive in the plastic to make them fire retardant. Same goes for those other yellowing beige boxes from the 90s, the SNES.

@van4195

3 жыл бұрын

i think it's sun damage

Great video, thanks for the upload! :)

Wonderfully done! Thanks! Now to find a copy of that book. It’s hard to buy them online because so often they get real musty.

Paul Reiser was the celebrity chosen to be the pitchman in the marketing material for a top end company, looking to go in a bold new direction, to have their laptop brand stand out from the competition? Offering the ThinkPad in black with the red TrackPoint center button instead of a touch pad wasn't the boldest decision made by I.B.M., regarding the ThinkPad. He actually did a number of spots for them and other products later on, after the ThinkPad campaign success, and got himself a lot of exposure that boosted his T.V./movie career because of it.

This explains why computers from the 70's seemed so varied in color and design but looked more the same in the decades after.

I remember tan / cream color and white. Plus we had some other colors the farther back you get. Mostly Gray as with the trs-80. My impression was it was all based on the IBM. White with color blue. As someone else said in the comments. Big Blue IBM.

Thanks for this share! Awesome!

I also read somewhere that they used beige so the computer's age wouldn't show as easily, as the bright office lights would cause the plastic to fade, it would't be as noticable on a beige colour.

Super interesting video, thanks for creating it.

Thinkpads have always been a good product. I have never been an IBM fan, Owned many computer over the years, from no name grey box clones, to DELL, IBM Compaq and even recently (a few years ago) HP (as much as I have despised their products, my used Z800 is fantastic). My current notebook is a noe Lenovo thinkpad T420 and it is a solid machine. Easily upgradible as most enterprise grade hardware is, and lots of features. Its sleek and well built and still has an optical drive, hot swappable with a hard disk. All the ports you could need amongst many other features.

I'd want that book on a PDF... So I can read it on my thinkpad.

the first non beige computer i ever saw was the sanyo mbc550 it was amazing it was like a stereo

My first PC in 1995 was beige, and so was the second. I think it was around 2002 that I got my first black PC, and it's been that way ever since, and I love it.

I just ordered the book, love my ThinkPads......

my first laptop was a thinkpad. still have it and still use it sometimes.

I had a commodore 64 it was great I wish I never sold it for $10 20 years ago.

Its funny that the beige design became the line we use to separate those two periods of computer technology

A lot of them used to be an off white eggshell color. Trouble is people used to smoke a whole heck of a lot more back then and the nicotine binds with the fire retardants in the plastic to make a sticky beige-brown mess. The same thing happens to old video game consoles. Thats why some look perfectly fine and others look and smell terrible.

I had long assumed beige plastic was cheapest, either from not needing colourant, or perhaps being easier to consistently manufacture. The other possibility I had wondered is if business customers disliked colours. That's still a bit possible actually, computers almost all come in black, metal finish or the occasional beige. Only a few I know of - all targeted at the home market, do anything differently. Computing, at least in business, is still not very colourful.

I had a SWTPC 6800, Commodore PET and a IBM Series ONE at one time. sure wish I still had them

It would be cool if computer companies still made some computers in a beige color. It would be interesting.

@BigOlSmellyFlashlight

6 жыл бұрын

sushi dream I'd like it

@TheMagno619

6 жыл бұрын

I know right

@raspberry1440kb

3 жыл бұрын

If you search on Amazon.co.jp you can see that Pioneer still makes a beige model of one of their Blu-ray drives; thankfully it's a BDXL model.

Huh! How about that. Well, TIL. Thanks Mr. Westlife! :-)

Olivetti PCs from this period were grey. On one occasion I was backed into a corner for an hour by one of the ergonomists for about an hour while he explained why the grey colour was important and why the screen bezel had various shades of grey in it. An experience I've not forgotten - you might say that I still carry the emotional scars!

My first computer was a shade of white and sat upright on the floor and was rectangular (1998). My sister bought it for me and it was just under a 1000 dollars. I bought a 99 dollar monitor and it worked good. I had dial-up internet and thought it was just awesome. I thought it looked awesome too. I liked the color more than beige.

I bought 2 ThinkPads from a friend for $20 (together). I think one has a Pentium-M and the other is newer, but I don't remember the models. But both are solid, great working systems regardless of their age. I need to see if they use the SATA interface so I can slap an SSD in each.

Ok, I looked up the regulations. Seems to me that a whole bunch of manufacturer overreacted a bit. (1) The regulation states what range of brightness floors, walls, ceilings and work surfaces should have. It also states that furniture and office machines should follow this. (3) Then there's a section basically saying that stuff should not be reflective. (Yeah, don't mirror lights into people's eyes...) (2) There's a separate section that recommends keyboards not to be dark or black to prevent reflections from sweat and grime. Newer regulations (those that also include color CRTs and recommend to use black-on-white text on them) also give the increased contrast between screen and keyboard as a reason against black ones. I may not have dug deep enough, but as far as I could find stuff, there's nothing about the color of office equipment. Just the brightness.

I'm still IBM Thinkpad fan since 1998.

Black sucks the light out of a room and is harder to see. It's a really shame that computers went away from light colors. Thanks a lot IBM.

woah, this is some kind of deep parable about standardization and localization and somebody will someday explain that parable and it'll be great

Actually interesting, thank you.

The first black home computers I ever saw were offered by Crutchfield, an audio equipment company, in the latter 1980s. Black had become standard for audio systems by then, replacing the brushed chrome/wood of the '70s.

The more you know, thanks for the information. :)

How did you get the thinkpads to freeze on the Boot-up screen?

@vwestlife

6 жыл бұрын

Hit the Pause key.

you learn something new everyday

My friend at school uses that same Think Pad laptop in 2017

So easy to forget how groundbreaking the design of the thinkpad was when it came out, So groundbreaking in fact that they haven't changed much up to this very day.

To blend in with all the file cabinets. Computers were supposed to be office equipment back then.

My Tandy 1000 is out in the garage collecting dust. Pulled it out of the dumpster. It works but what a pain to use.

What a great collection computers you have, I'm jealous.

Very interesting vid indeed, so we can know that the true color standard for business pcs purposes was that white-beige theme, but if we look to other computers around the world like in UK and Japan, they didn't apply that standard in quite some of their products, but mostly those pcs were made for home, so they don't have to blend with the "office theme environment", some of this pc were the Sinclair spectrum, armstrad cpc, both from UK, and of course the tandy trs from USA, as many people know. In japan is very interesting that the pc market was stronger towards home pcs and they had a lot of varies colored cases for pcs, most were gray, black even blue and red, as some NEC, Sharp, MSX machines and Fujitsu pcs. But in 1987 was launched (in Japan) the NEC PC98LT, which was a lcd monochrome laptop with a dark-black clamshell case, as shown here www.eonet.ne.jp/~building-pc/pc/pc1987.htm ahead of Apple and IBM in that regard.

There was a specific reason why computers were beige. It was an ergonomics issue, specifically eye strain and fatigue. Big companies had bought main frame computers in the 70's to do all their calculations and predictions. But there was one problem. All their data was on paper in filing cabinets. So through the 70's and early 80's they hired thousands of file clerks to input paper data into mainframe computers using connected terminals. There was a copy holder mounted beside the monitor that held letter/legal size paper. So you had someone sitting in front of a terminal reading black text on a bright white paper all day, every day. Early keypads were almost all black with white text. Germany had strong labor unions that were concerned about workplace safety and ergonomics. They regulated many things around workplace ergonomics. In this case, they were concerned about constant refocusing between black text on white and white text on black. So they implemented standards that dictated an acceptable contrast ratio between text and background. In order to sell in Germany (and as a consequence - Europe), you had to follow the standards. White plastic was too hard to maintain so computer companies used beige with almost black text on the keyboards. Of course there were two flaws with this logic; good typists don't look at the keyboard and all monitors until the mid 80's were black with green text. But this did not stop Germany implementing the regulations. Eye fatigue was a big concern at the time and a number of companies were working to improve screen colors to reduce eye fatigue. By the mid eighties screens were all moving to black text on white. By the mid 80's everyone was inputing data directly into the computer so there was no need to transcribe large amounts of paper documents. So the core issue went away but the standards hung on - so most computers remained beige through the 80's. Hope you find this interesting.

Yeah, that "cream color" really blended in IBM. Such an organic look that tan plastic cube taking up an entire table lol. I just think it's funny they felt it made the product blend into the room. Computers have always felt very time specific and stood out in my mind, but maybe I like computers and look for them. Now with 1/4" thick tvs and tablets and smart phones it's about as close to integration as you can get for digital products, but all computers before are relatively noticeable in a room.

great info, great video. 10/10

A very nice and pleasant video thanks for posting it

What exactly do you do with old computers? I collect old clocks and I have them running. What do you do with a computer like that?

My oldest computer case, an AOpen "QF50C" that I got beginning of 2004, is beige :)

Beige and browns were the popular color of the early-mid 80's when these computers were designed (also carpet, walls, clothes)

that regulation may or may not be odd, but has definitely defined some of my childhood

OMG I had a Tandy 1000! Ahh, good old DOS prompts.