Why are old computers beige?

Turns out there were several reasons for it, according to the people who worked for the company that was once a leading manufacturer of beige computers -- IBM.

[vwestlife]

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.

[FromSagansStardust]

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!

[Cyranek]

youtube content 2017 = watching a man read a book

[brandybeckstrand]

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.

[appletree]

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

[Chyrosran]

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!

[sndwichMakeR]

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.).

[GrahamMarshall-yj]

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 70s to do all their calculations. But there was one big problem! All their data was on paper in filing cabinets. So through the 70s 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. So they implemented standards that dictated an acceptable contrast ratio between text and background.

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 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 office computers during the early 80s were beige without exception.

By the mid 80s 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 80s.

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 80s were black with green text. But this did not stop Germany/Europe from implementing the standards. Eye strain 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 Apple).

How do I know this? I worked as an industrial designer in the early 80s 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

[Rnurgundy]

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

[MusicradioNetwork]

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.

[ericfresh]

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.

[RoboNuggie]

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...

[SuperSkandale]

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

[rarbiart]

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.)

[Mrpd]

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


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

[TheRailroad]

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

[alandouglas]

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.

[LiborTinka]

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.

[davidherbst]

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.

[connectorxp]

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