The Beige Box Fades to Black (2002)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The Color Association has much less clout than it used to, since the US lost its apparel business. They once really did rule color, because their "forecasts" were used by big fabric mills to decide what to make in quantity.
[I'm thinking about old reel-reel tape players, Sanyo, Philips, Zenith, Braun transistor radios --interestingly I recall seeing some old typewriters which had a weird grey-green hue]
CA: "Mmm... I am thinking the next color is... perrywinkle!"
Industries: "Perrywinkle all the shit rite naow!!"
CA: "See! Told you perrywinkle was next!"
What value do they add?
Looking past the display, she could see a lot of old hardware side by side on shelves, most of it in that grubby beige plastic. Why had people, for the first twenty years of computing, cased everything in that? Anything digital, from that century, it was pretty much guaranteed to be that sad-ass institutional beige, unless they'd wanted it to look more dramatic, more cutting edge, in which case they'd opted for black. But mostly this old stuff was folded in nameless shades of next-to-nothing, nondescript sort-of-tan. [...] She pointed at the beige hardware. 'How come this old shit is always that same color? His forehead creased. 'There are two theories. One is that it was to help people in the workplace be more comfortable with radically new technologies that would eventually result in the mutation or extinction of the workplace. Hence the almost universal choice, by the manufacturers, of a shade of plastic most often encountered in downscale condoms. He smirked at Chevette. 'Yeah? What's two? 'That the people who were designing the stuff were unconsciously terrified of their own product, and in order not to scare themselves, kept it looking as unexciting as possible. Literally 'plain vanilla, you follow me?
Google Image: "citroen karin" ( https://www.google.ca/search?biw=1288&bih=633&tbm=isch&sa=1&... ) or "sttng bridge" ( https://www.google.ca/search?biw=1288&bih=633&tbm=isch&sa=1&... )
You can bleach them back to their original colour with hydrogen peroxide.
There was also the Amstrad CPC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_CPC
And the Sinclair ZX81: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81
And the Memotech MTX: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memotech_MTX
PDP-11's were mostly black, but I suppose that doesn't count as a "PC".
The distinction is important, because workstations were office equipment and never consumer equipment. They had much fatter margins and a bigger industrial design budget.
For instance, here's another workstation from the same era as the NeXT cube:
We had some pizza-box style Indys in a computer lab when I was at uni. They were some of the prettiest computers I'd ever seen, even though they were just rectangles.
And if so does this will this style come back into fashion? When all the laptops or PC hardware are sleek black or brushed aluminium will a nicely executed beige finish look bold, different and interesting enough to take over again?
As an example, Sony have a retro-style PS4 which is similar (but grey and not beige) - compared to the normal black one it looks really nice to me
If a new pigment comes out that enables pure white or black or silver or any other colour at a cheaper, better price then that sets the fashion. If that new pigment later turns out to be a fire hazard or toxic on some way then it goes, for some other colours to be used and therefore 'the new fashion'.
If you look at aluminium finishes, the smooth, polished look fell out of favour just around the time that a variant on the shotblasting process became cheaper. So aluminium became less shiny.
There are many other factors but a surprising amount of what dictates fashion is a new industrial process or chemical discovery.
For other devices, there's still the problem that white or beige plastic gets grimy fast and will turn an ugly yellow after it's been exposed to sunlight for 10 years. If you look at photos of old iBooks or white DS Lites on eBay, some of those are looking pretty horrid.
Harvest Gold?
Coppertone?
I deeply, profoundly, bitterly hate and despise black desktop PC cases. I prefer beige, white, bare metal, or nearly anything else.
I need to assemble a new desktop PC from parts, and if I have to get a black case, then I will paint it white or beige, remove the black paint and paint it beige or white, or some such. For the paint quality, I don't care: I'll put up with blobs of paint, runs, drips, a really bad paint job, maybe some dead insects stuck in the paint, etc., ANYTHING but black. I don't much care what the thing looks like, except I don't want black.
Black is about the worst possible color for a desktop PC case.
Why? Style, fashion, emotion? Nope. Instead, rock solid, crucial functionality, practicality, and utility.
For the needed equipment for my business, in particular, my first server for my startup, any effort to emphasize style, etc. and ignore utility, etc. is really offensive, infuriating, dysfunctional, outrageous.
Makers of black desktop PC cases, shut up, sit down, and listen up: Can I order a case totally unpainted? I'll pay extra for unpainted. Will pay still more for beige or white. For your black case, I HATE your product.
Why do I hate black PC cases? Simple. Dirt simple. Really simple: I have to build the PC and then maintain that PC. To do that I need to be able to SEE the parts. But with a black case, it's just super tough to see the parts. Being able to see the parts is just CRUCIAL. With a black PC, to work on it, commonly I will need 200-400 W of incandescent light, which heats up the work area and gets in the way of the work, just to SEE. Then commonly I bump into one of the lights and break the filament of the bulb. Bummer.
E.g., go to Web sites of companies that sell desktop PC cases and look at their pictures of their cases. Sure, for the black cases, about all you can see are big, black blobs with essentially all details hidden. Especially for the insides, when shopping, building, or maintaining, I need to see clearly.
Is any water torture severe enough punishment for the people painting desktop PC cases black?
Again, offer an option of a case with no paint at all. Or, for the best option, sure, return to a beige case.
And, one more, for the industrial designers that try to make the cases look like something from Star Wars, with swoops, sweeps, other dramatic nonsense, to heck with it. Instead, the case is a mechanical tool. I no more want the emotional droppings of industrial designers on my desktop PC case -- any such is patronizing -- than I want them on my set of metric socket wrenches, a sledge hammer, a circle saw, etc. Keep the artistic industrial designers far away from the desktop PC case I need for my next computer, a server for my startup. Or just borrow case design themes from, say, Supermicro.
If I want art, then I'll select my own, thank you. For a PC case, I want just a tool, like a socket wrench, and not some wacko effort at style, fashion, or art.
For the bad art, I'll upchuck but put up with it. For black, I won't put up with it, will shop (I have, for hours) for beige and otherwise, if I have to accept black, will remove the paint, repaint it, or paint over it.
This is a rant, but long needed to be said, too long, and especially needed now given the OP.
One more: I don't want my keyboard black either. In year 2000, I ordered three beige keyboards from Gateway. At this point, one of the three still works well, and for that I've had to use epoxy to repair the broken bearing for the wire stabilizer of the space bar. Why keep the old beige keyboards? Sure, easy: I want to be able to see the keys; I do know touch typing but only for keys a-z ; for most of the rest, I have to look so want to be able to see.
/rant
The Merlin line is currently available with a two-tone option with black, gunmetal or white exterior and black, gunmetal, white or red internals.
I just made a note of your suggestion as a TODO indexed for "system maintenance" for my startup!
But I will also want to get black OUT of the inside where it is most important that I be able to see. There just some cheap, thin, white coat will let me see, and that's what's crucial.
It's not furniture or home decorating. Instead, it's just a mechanical part of a crucial tool for my business.
When my business works, then I'll consider art in a nice house but even then not in my server farm for my business.
My point is really just dirt simple, and I'm having a really tough time getting it across; I want to get the point across in hopes the makers of desktop PCs will hear and act.
Without repeating a dozen times, I just don't know how to be more clear: The PC I need is a tool, just a tool, for my business. I care, care nearly everything, about my business. The PC is not home decorating anymore than a set of socket wrenches is. For that PC, I have no interest in style, fashion, art, or home decorating.
For black, for me, it's really, really serious: Without 200-400 W of incandescent light, I just can't see clearly enough for the work. It's that simple. Only that simple. I just need to see. With black, I can't see. With nearly anything else, I can.
I just want to see. Otherwise I don't care except don't really want a fashion statement. I'll put up with a fashion statement if I can see to work on the parts in the case.
Think of the case as something in a workshop or on a factory floor, not furniture; but I've said all that and don't know what to do to be more clear than just to say it again.
Maybe the problem is that the OP and nearly everyone else on this thread is talking about fashion, and I'm not and instead -- I don't want to repeat a dozen times.
I could scream loudly enough to be heard on Mars -- I need a mechanical tool I can see to work with, don't care about fashion, and don't want fashion to get in the way. I could scream that point loudly enough to blow down all the trees and houses in all of NYS. All it is about is just one word -- seeing. Nothing could be more simple.
Why can't you use a CFL or LED?
But, actually, so far, I'm still on incandescent light.
For CFL, I have one, puts out about the same amount of light as a 15 W incandescent, and I have it over the kitchen sink running 24 x 7, e.g., as a kitchen "night light".
My issue is simple, all in just one word -- seeing. I need to see clearly inside the case when building and/or maintaining the computer.
It's not about the heat or cost of electricity for the light.
It's just about seeing clearly, e.g., each screw, wire, cable, socket, etc. Inside a black case, it's tough to see clearly without a lot of light. So, on the outside, maybe I'll get a spray can and paint it white. On the inside, maybe I'll get a brush and some cheap white paint and give it quick, crude job of painting it white without covering over small holes.
Ah, I was frustrated, kept hoping some case manufacturer would get away from black. But, sure, there's an easy solution, for much less trouble than shopping for a beige or white case -- just go ahead and accept a black case and just repaint the thing. Then back to my business.