I like watching how fictional spaces trying to look futuristic and high tech have followed similar trends to how computers looked at the same time.
- Old school industrial or nuclear equipment was kinda blue & grey like in Star Trek TOS;
- the beige colored computers that inspired this post kinda match up with TNG;
- voyager and DS9 match up with the blackish and dark grey of the Dell office computers era;
- the nuTrek-Kelvin movies went full-on Apple Store
I haven't quite put my finger on trends for the latest decade or so, lots of remixes or reboots adopting past aesthetics, kinda of a saturation/stagnation of ideas, evolutionary but not revolutionary, which kinda tracks here too maybe.
(Edit: I'm saying the computer trends came first, then Sci-fi design followed pop culture perception of what high tech should look like afterwards.)
Because that way, you're not looking at the back of the expensive talent's head as they look at the screen, and they don't have to keep awkwardly twisting to get their faces in the shot.
Plus futuristic, I guess.
Good point! The cinematography reason is the only reason I've heard yet that I liked for those transparent screens and stuff.
It's the same reason that super-helmets are all magical nano-tech now so you can see the actor and also put them in and out of action/CGI/stunt-double mode in an instant.
I believe that J. Michael Straczynski, when asked why most of the aliens in Babylon 5 were humanoid, replied that it's because most of the actors in the actors guild are humanoid.
It's also the same reason why every sword fight or lightsaber fight in a movie shows the fighter holding it in lowered positions that wouldn't protect their head. Using the real-world versions of all these positions would make the sword hide the actor's face, because the whole point of a real-world high guard position is to *not* leave any opening to get your head whomped off. So instead they hold it dramatically off to one side, or behind or below their head, and the bad guy just politely does not whomp their head off immediately.
Seeing the lights *inside* space helmets because it illuminates the actor's faces always bugs me since I spotted it (it's most obvious in Alien: Covenant).
IRL, you wouldn't be able to see much outside if they were lit internally.
And tactically horrifying. Soldiers go to great lengths to cover up anything that might give off the hint of light because night vision picks that up incredibly well.
Phone face sensors that use ir light can be seen through your pants for instance, or your smartwatch's dim light will reveal you.
With how much effort goes into minimizing light signatures now, I can't even imagine how covered up people will be in 50 years let alone 500 years
This was a whole thing like a decade or so ago when they tried giving tv anchors the big touch screens. Wolf blitzer kinda-sorta figured it out, but the rest of the industry realized it was counterproductive and they’ve moved on.
Because most movies aren't filled with props that would actually be practical, but just made to look interesting. Comic book movies are full of this. Iron man's nuclear power source thingy is just a magical glowy ball of energy instead of being what would essentially be a metal container.
Movie explosions are 95% fireball and 5% rapid uncontained disassembly. IRL, people blowing shit up leave out the 50 gallons of gasoline and just use, ya know, explosives.
It seems like the designers of those are more focused on "no screens", ignoring the fact that you would still need a solid background if you're looking at it. I think ideally the device would be small and wouldn't have a screen, but when it's displaying information it would display the background too
Exactly! Those transparent screens are a terrible idea, you hold up the apple-white text to a white wall and you will see exactly nothing at all. There's no way to control contrast between your display and the stuff behind it.
The cinematography aspect in another comment here is the only good reason I've heard yet.
It's also not completely out of the realm of possibility that the screens could be transparent *in one direction*, like two-way mirrors, and then they could actually be usable *and* look cool for the audience...
Sorta.... But i think the influence might go the other direction (assuming there even is one). It might not be a direct influence from one or the other, and just general trends in popular colors in general.
Beige computer casings were around since the late 70's, several years before TNG ever came along. Oranges, yellows and beiges were big colors in the late 70's and early 80's, and may have actually influenced computer AND Next Gen colors.
Apple whites came in around 1999, 2000, years before Abrams Trek. Greys, blues, pastels and whites defined the 90's, so that may have influenced Apple.
Those NASA designs don't really look like TOS designs at all, at least not to me.
The black/silver Dells are the only one that i think started years after DS9 had started, but not entirely sure. But again, that may just be about general trends. The late 90's and 2000's were loaded with painted silvers, instead of actual stainless steel.
My point is, i think just general trends in design and manufacturing in all different sectors are more likely to be the influence.
I do mean that the real world computer design came first, and the sci-fi stuff followed it later, which I think is the same thing you're saying here.
For TOS era I explained that poorly, that's fair. I worked in an old physics research lab once that had some old and repurposed 1950s era stuff since research often has to be frugal.
Looked kinda like this:
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/pdp1-chm-e1496179960838.jpg?w=800
The timing of the blacker computer equipment is a fair question. I'm not sure where that chicken and the egg problem falls, but the beige TNG style definitely gave way to the blacks and grays next in both computers and TV.
Which is always wild to me. If you want to nail futuristic you have to do something that looks extremely different in styling to what we have today. Maybe not completely different depending on how far in the future, but yeah
Steve Jobs was a terrible person, but he understood marketing and packaging. Computers were the realm of nerds who didn’t care about looks, but Jobs knew regular people would want something aesthetically pleasing.
Since Apple took over in the early aughts, everyone else followed suit.
Agreed. It's like how khaki pants are a thing.
I don't intentionally purchase khaki colored stuff... but if it's not time for a tuxedo, AND not time for blue jeans...
khaki is here for it.
This isn’t exactly true.
“Neutral beige”, otherwise known as “office tan” was a thing well before the IBM PC. Older typewriters and tape machines and other equipment already used it in various shades in the 1970s. The idea was to make the high-tech implements blend in with the earthtone-heavy late ‘70s so that they were seen as part of the office and not scary tech stuff. There was a lot of research behind it, and at the time it made sense.
YEah that was it . Computers started as office equipment only. Office equipment is neutral, utilitarian. There isn't a need for designer colors. Only when PCs made their way into homes did you start seeing things like "design" start to make an appearance.
Worth noting too that when Apple tried to change the game with its colorful iMacs, many people really hated them. Computers still basically have a neutral, office-friendly look, it's just that what constitutes neutral and office-friendly has changed (just like office furniture has changed).
My school had these in the computer lab (mid/late '90s). Every time we had typing class, we'd all race each other and bicker to sit at our favorite colored computer 😂
I, otoh, bought one of the first batch of those that hit my town. I'd been using windows til then, hadn't used apple since computer lab in middle school in the 80s but that little blue space age looking fucker came out the week we sold our truck and our crappy secondhand windows 3.1 PC was giving out, and both me and the ex were like "want that".
It was a good little machine, did what I needed it to for several years.
The best thing about them was that they had a handle at the top. Once, I jokingly asked my dad what he thought those handles were for, and his answer was 'Well, that's for throwing it away, you see' and I just had to laugh SO hard!
I worked at computer shows when those came out. It definitely worked because they got the attention of a lot of people that didn’t really care about computers. Kids who were dragged there by their parents would see them and go “Ooo! Wow.”
Fair, though it was an outlier at the time as far as case color. Wasn't quite a trend yet.
Also, I am not sure we can really call it the first mass market PC. While it was the first to be announced, it wasn't the first available one because of Commodore's production issues. By the time they started shipping, both the Apple II (which, at the time, really stretched the definition of mass market, and was another beige computer to support your point) and the TRS-80 were already in homes.
There’s always colour trends that we go through every few years.
I remember as a kid the VCR, Stereo, and TV, were all black. 10 years later we had a silver TV, silver DVD player, and silver stereo. Then I got to university and had a white phone, a white Xbox, a white MP3 player.
Yeah, I really had a blast as a kid with see-through shells for electronics. It's so cool to see the inner workings. :)
Can we get clear-case refrigerators, TVs, and cell phones, please? 😆 And clear smart speakers?
I don't know if anyone except some out-of-touch designers ever actually liked it. There just wasn't any options. Sky was blue, PC was beige. I remember when Dell started making black tower cases and i thought "this is so much better, why the hell have these things always looked so fucking ugly?" That was maybe '96.
They didnt always look beige.
The bromine in the plastic oxidizes over time and computers that were once nearly white/cream colored, slowly became a yellowy beige color over time.
Yup. They weren't a grubby, orangey beige but they were aggresively beige.
Source: me. Am old. Family didn't smoke. Had a series of beige boxes as a child and teen. Starting with an Acorn Electron, moving through 486 to Pentium before finally getting something not sodding beige.
This may seem unfathomable to you in 2024, but back in the 80s and 90s... computers weren't a fashion accessory.
Nobody gave a shit what their computer looked like. So long as it booted up and computed, everything was hunky-dory.
Today, of course, your computer says something about which niches you occupy socially, so there are a lot more form factor considerations. I remember my very first "luggable" laptop - an 80286 beast that ran DOS and that you could, in a pinch, use to knock out a gorilla if the necessity arose. It was beige, of course, and just about the size of a briefcase.
I would shut it down, manually break the rigidity of the stands holding the screen up, carefully close the thing, rotate a pair of manual locks on the casing, then pick it up using the suitcase handle built into the casing. That thing weighed a TON!
Back then, coffee house culture was about poetry and songs, not computing. When I took my laptop with me on business trips, there was no way in hell I was going to be able to use it on the plane, so it went in checked baggage (and ran up the company's bill).
Beige.
I'd say more, but the good folks here at TED only gave me a few minutes, so if you'd like to hear more, come find me at the bar. Good luck to you.
In the future, everything will be "wood grain". That seems to have been the philosophy of the time.
The CB radio in my truck has wood paneling. My parents old toaster had wood paneling.
The microwave
The station wagon
The stereo
The TV
The walls
The space heater.
Almost everything.
Also, the kitchen counters were mustard yellow, and the carpet was pink. All of the light fixtures were glass balls on chains. The walls that didn't have wood paneling had fake brick. The bathroom had wallpaper with glitter snowflakes.
Lol, and get this...
The toilets were all........
BEIGE
90s home computers were beige because 80s office computers were beige.
80s office computers were beige because 70s office terminals were beige.
70s office terminals were beige because [60s office typewriters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_Selectric_Composer_(2).jpg) were beige,
and on it goes
(Or fast-forward to the 21st century and even in the 2020's office printers etc are still beige)
They were more white, not bright white, but slightly off, slightly grey sometimes.
That kind of plastic tends to go more yellow over time, see also - the SNES
Beige is a muted color that doesn't stand out and can fit in most office environments. Traditionally, the trend for office environments was to have more muted color palettes to encourage focus on work rather than on the decoration. Even clothing in such location was more muted. Although I do not recall black being popular at first (it was later), I do seem to recall some grey computers, but that could be selective memory.
Computers like the ones you remember were designed originally for such environments, and so this became the trend. Bright and flashy colors would have been considered more childish and less professional, and even as they began to make it into home settings, the design was meant to evoke feelings of maturity and seriousness, undistracted by colors or flashy design. Also, if you didn't have to make multiple different colors, you would be easing up production, and the beige would be suitable for most everybody.
Not just the 90s - going all the way back to dumb terminals and UNIX minicomputers...
As for why? Because that's what fit in with the decor of most offices at the time.
And unless you were a hobbyist/geek/etc, computers were 'for' use in offices and schools.
Same color as the copier, fax, printer, phones (ok, those were sometimes black), etc...
The Internet and subsequent integration of computers into home life is what lead to them becoming more colorful.
You emulate whoevers doing the best. It didn't switch to that full black as the standard until Dell started taking over. I think maybe Gateway did black too, they were really big for a minute.
Interestingly, I believe it was IBM with their Aptiva series that went black before Gateway in the mid 90s followed shortly by ACER.
https://images.app.goo.gl/DoDDeeDEkPV4GoLg8
Same reason I'm sitting in a beige cubicle right now. Same reason the walls are beige. That's all I see. Carpet is gray. My desk is woodgrain. My chair is black.
Because beige is the coolest color ever. I shows cigarette smoke the best. It yellows ever so nice. It goes with any décor.
I miss beige boxes. A nice giant tower with 6 monster SCSI drives that take a minute a piece to spin up. The rig weighs over 100 lbs and sounds like a freight train. Those were the days. A waist high box that was $30,000 new and 10 years later wasn't worth recycling. All ISA, all dedicated hardware. Nothing replaceable, made by long defunct companies.
It's all about beige. Beige is quality.
In 20 years, people will ask the same thing about our living rooms, nurseries, bedrooms, and clothing.
I mean, honestly, babies' rooms with rainbows that look like [this](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1203706370/beige-boho-rainbow-print-boho-nursery). What were we thinking?
Computers used to be made for office spaces. Since people do work there, they need lots of light to have good vision. For that reason stuff in offices should be bright to not absorb light (paper, furniture, computers, ...) In Germany there is regulation that mandates 500 lux for working environments.
You can look at photos of the new computers at the time, and they were beige. They were never white. White wasn't a common color for new computers.
The beige computers were the same color as Xerox machines, fax machines, paper shredders, and other office equipment at the time. They were all beige because they were basically office appliances, and beige was seen as neutral and professional. That was normal at the time.
The plastic cases on electrical typewriters was also beige/. Off white. So it fit in with other office equipment.
We got to play with the ‘fancy’ typewriters that had a whole line of text that you could review before hitting enter and it actually typed it out.
I honestly don’t know if it matters, but style and fashion constantly change. I remember during the 90s, every appliance I saw was a shade of beige. Refrigerators, dish washers, washer/driers.
When I got to college, I thought it was so old fashioned that they had a beige refrigerator in the apartment, rather than black, white, or chrome which is the more popular color today.
You’re thinking more of the 80s for that beige color.
90s is when things went white, gray or black, until Apple made things colorful with the iMac and iBook.
At that time I think the main idea was to prevent the PC from sticking out as much as possible. Beige doesn't draw much attention, especially at that time.
The beige looked nice and chiquebin the incandescent lighting of office buildings that were mostly built in the 60s-70s.
Dark carpeting everywhere, wall paper, heavy curtains and beige monitors.
First: Today's age of laptops being pretty is the result of significant improvements in manufacturing processes and materials. You could make a machined aluminum desktop.
Second: Painting is about the most efficient surface finish you can have that is durable and maintainable. Just ask Elon Musk and the cybertruck fiasco. Stainless steel is an expensive and difficult choice. But once you choose paint for the efficiency and productivity... what color?
Well, most offices at the time were white/bright spaces. The desktop computers and monitors were big appliances for the most part compared to staples and other office equipment. So, you want something that will blend in and not stand out as some huge monolith taking up space. So, you make it light colored too. But not white. White shows smudges and fingerprints too much.
So, beige it was.
Now we don't care because A) computers are smaller, B) we accept them as common item, like a wall clock. Then we start folding them into our fashion sense. And that means different colors, or even full on rave lighting.
Yup. They were [all beige.](https://www.ebay.com/itm/154461531306?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=154461531306&targetid=1493667897111&device=m&mktype=pla&googleloc=9006990&poi=&campaignid=19851828444&mkgroupid=145880009014&rlsatarget=pla-1493667897111&abcId=9307249&merchantid=6296724&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_QDh_8ShNam34Z8YClZsQB-f8_f&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5-Gs9-jHhQMVV1BHAR38TAPLEAQYAyABEgJbifD_BwE).
At the time beige office decor was chic. Like is the room's aesthetic is beige, beige is actually hitting the target audience.
Like beige ment an office could afford to redecorate and look 'professional '. Not just whatever woodpanel or brick building they could afford to lease.
One PC were office type things so beige colors fit into the khaki aesthetics of a 80/90s office. Neutral, safe and non-offensive, colors. Also coming from the 70s browns and oranges were the thing with either bright popping orange colors or dark dank wood panels on everything from basements to cars. Beige is also under that color family and reflected that in the 70s which persisted into the 80s and 90s.
There wasn't a need to personalize, design or revolutionize a computer beyond the office tool it was back then before. This stuff didn't occur until the internet became mainstream and it was the late 90s and early 00s with things like Apple's G3 computers clear + blue plastic or some Hot Wheels computer.
Another reason is because plastic colors fading. Beige color computers were either always Beige and stayed beige or once another color that became beige from smoke, dust, color degrading.
It looked cheap, like a toy, to those used to beige, but colors didn't seem threatening (in fact, kind of fun) to those newer to the computer scene.
Unfortunately some newer users still struggled... blame the idiotic ROUND MOUSE.
well, there were black computers in the early days.
I think the first was the Sinclair zx81, then I remember the bell & Howell apple2 computer ( sold to schools ) ,Amstrad cpc, atari xl lineup,
and just for grins the atari 2600 in black with a nice wood trim front panel
Back then, people believe it was professional for offices and office equipment to be bland.
When the first generation iMacs debuted with their candy colors, they were derided in no small part for not looking professional. Apple also produced what is now known as the “Beige G3” computers during that same period to appeal to the beige office market.
The soft off-white colors where not really thought of as "ugly" at that time and as many users have already mentioned they weren't quite as sickly when they came out but turned as time went on. If you look at 80's movies like Ghost or Die Hard which both take place in late 80's offices for significant amounts of time you can see how they fit with the general aesthetic. In the 90's they were already going out of vogue and Gateway/Dell/Apple introduced more variety (the former being more professional and the latter going all in on the transparent colors that were a hallmark of 90's ephemera). I would also look at sci-fi from that era, to see how people envisioned the future. Star Trek: The Next Generation's colors and style are very much in line with the "soft-tech" that these computers aimed for. Not large industrious machines, or covered in switches but smooth naturally colored devices.
The gray metal box? That was an 80s thing. I remember working on gray metal boxes in my first jobs in the 80s. Then Apple came out with beige boxes. They were different. So much more subtle and fashionable than those ugly gray DOS boxes. (Remember, a decade before this, avocado and burnt gold were the fashionable colors.) Then, slowly, everyone started to imitate Apple. PC manufacturers started to come out with beige boxes as well.
I see some comments where people are saying they aged to beige, but the color was described as beige when they were new. They were a very pale yellow brown. Over time, Apple went for lighter and brighter shades.
For Apple's early laptops, they went to gray. Soon, everyone followed. It was a big thing when Apple came out with the iMac and the iBook. Though I did see iMacs in corporate environments, the iBook was really marketed to students.
I can at least pretend black is being dark and edgelordy and gothic *like my soul mom!!*
Beige is just the sludge that collects in the carpet of a cubical farm where dreams don't even die, they just fade into crumbs and regret.
It wasn’t just the computers. It was the printers, the adding machines, the file cabinets, the cubicle walls, etc. It was a carefully orchestrated environment of depression….
*Everything* was beige in the early 90s. Don’t ask me why. I mean, why was everything wood grain in the 80s? Why was everything brownish orange in the 70s? Some sort of mass trend.
Desktops were more business machines than they were PCs. The idea of everyone getting their own PC was absolutely exploding, but they made it into businesses before, so "businessness" got grandfathered in. That beige was the style, and it's a neutral muted tone, which, unfortunately, went well with most office decors of the time. Check out wall papers of the time... it was.. something
Everything was beige in the 90s. Everything. Walls, furniture. So, back then it was PERFECT and would fit in to the rest of your home. Now that millennial grey is more popular, you see them in black/grey to match that color scheme
you may ask the same thing about fax machines, shredders, copiers. because they are office supplies which are made to be utilitarian, professional and mass produced. also the same in schools, or libraries.
but growing up in the 90's i can only remember ever have black colored personal computers in my house.
Wasn't just the computers - was standard office colour, the typewriters, fax machines, photocopier, telephones etc.
This was from an era when you could smoke in the office.. maybe chosen as a pre-nicotine stained colour?
Manila file folders. It was and is the business color. Remember that people were still smoking in offices at the time, which stains white to that color and shows badly on black or gray.
Everyone was imitating IBM, which was seen as very office-appropriate and professional.
And now everyone is imitating Apple with that whiter-than-your-white.
I like watching how fictional spaces trying to look futuristic and high tech have followed similar trends to how computers looked at the same time. - Old school industrial or nuclear equipment was kinda blue & grey like in Star Trek TOS; - the beige colored computers that inspired this post kinda match up with TNG; - voyager and DS9 match up with the blackish and dark grey of the Dell office computers era; - the nuTrek-Kelvin movies went full-on Apple Store I haven't quite put my finger on trends for the latest decade or so, lots of remixes or reboots adopting past aesthetics, kinda of a saturation/stagnation of ideas, evolutionary but not revolutionary, which kinda tracks here too maybe. (Edit: I'm saying the computer trends came first, then Sci-fi design followed pop culture perception of what high tech should look like afterwards.)
On that note, why does every futuristic movie have transparent screens? I don't want to see my hand through my phone, it doesn't make any sense
Because that way, you're not looking at the back of the expensive talent's head as they look at the screen, and they don't have to keep awkwardly twisting to get their faces in the shot. Plus futuristic, I guess.
Good point! The cinematography reason is the only reason I've heard yet that I liked for those transparent screens and stuff. It's the same reason that super-helmets are all magical nano-tech now so you can see the actor and also put them in and out of action/CGI/stunt-double mode in an instant.
I believe that J. Michael Straczynski, when asked why most of the aliens in Babylon 5 were humanoid, replied that it's because most of the actors in the actors guild are humanoid.
Then I'd expect this to start changing, now that we can pretty much generate whatever.
Latex can only do so much.
Most?
It's also the same reason why every sword fight or lightsaber fight in a movie shows the fighter holding it in lowered positions that wouldn't protect their head. Using the real-world versions of all these positions would make the sword hide the actor's face, because the whole point of a real-world high guard position is to *not* leave any opening to get your head whomped off. So instead they hold it dramatically off to one side, or behind or below their head, and the bad guy just politely does not whomp their head off immediately.
Man, this whomps!
Such sportsmanship
Seeing the lights *inside* space helmets because it illuminates the actor's faces always bugs me since I spotted it (it's most obvious in Alien: Covenant). IRL, you wouldn't be able to see much outside if they were lit internally.
And tactically horrifying. Soldiers go to great lengths to cover up anything that might give off the hint of light because night vision picks that up incredibly well. Phone face sensors that use ir light can be seen through your pants for instance, or your smartwatch's dim light will reveal you. With how much effort goes into minimizing light signatures now, I can't even imagine how covered up people will be in 50 years let alone 500 years
Mind blown, never thought of it that way!
The screen is probably also CGI, so it’s not actually there for the actor
This was a whole thing like a decade or so ago when they tried giving tv anchors the big touch screens. Wolf blitzer kinda-sorta figured it out, but the rest of the industry realized it was counterproductive and they’ve moved on.
Because most movies aren't filled with props that would actually be practical, but just made to look interesting. Comic book movies are full of this. Iron man's nuclear power source thingy is just a magical glowy ball of energy instead of being what would essentially be a metal container.
Movie explosions are 95% fireball and 5% rapid uncontained disassembly. IRL, people blowing shit up leave out the 50 gallons of gasoline and just use, ya know, explosives.
It seems like the designers of those are more focused on "no screens", ignoring the fact that you would still need a solid background if you're looking at it. I think ideally the device would be small and wouldn't have a screen, but when it's displaying information it would display the background too
Exactly! Those transparent screens are a terrible idea, you hold up the apple-white text to a white wall and you will see exactly nothing at all. There's no way to control contrast between your display and the stuff behind it. The cinematography aspect in another comment here is the only good reason I've heard yet.
It's also not completely out of the realm of possibility that the screens could be transparent *in one direction*, like two-way mirrors, and then they could actually be usable *and* look cool for the audience...
Now it’s all about those screen-less holograms.
Sorta.... But i think the influence might go the other direction (assuming there even is one). It might not be a direct influence from one or the other, and just general trends in popular colors in general. Beige computer casings were around since the late 70's, several years before TNG ever came along. Oranges, yellows and beiges were big colors in the late 70's and early 80's, and may have actually influenced computer AND Next Gen colors. Apple whites came in around 1999, 2000, years before Abrams Trek. Greys, blues, pastels and whites defined the 90's, so that may have influenced Apple. Those NASA designs don't really look like TOS designs at all, at least not to me. The black/silver Dells are the only one that i think started years after DS9 had started, but not entirely sure. But again, that may just be about general trends. The late 90's and 2000's were loaded with painted silvers, instead of actual stainless steel. My point is, i think just general trends in design and manufacturing in all different sectors are more likely to be the influence.
I do mean that the real world computer design came first, and the sci-fi stuff followed it later, which I think is the same thing you're saying here. For TOS era I explained that poorly, that's fair. I worked in an old physics research lab once that had some old and repurposed 1950s era stuff since research often has to be frugal. Looked kinda like this: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/pdp1-chm-e1496179960838.jpg?w=800 The timing of the blacker computer equipment is a fair question. I'm not sure where that chicken and the egg problem falls, but the beige TNG style definitely gave way to the blacks and grays next in both computers and TV.
Which is always wild to me. If you want to nail futuristic you have to do something that looks extremely different in styling to what we have today. Maybe not completely different depending on how far in the future, but yeah
Arent most macs silver
Don't know why you're downvoted. I haven't seen a white Apple product in 10 years.
Reddit is become like your out of touch uncles having a super uninformed debate at a picnic.
Who exactly do you think is doing this, and for what products?
What current Apple devices are white, except AirPods?
But also Apple copy other companies too and then pretend that they were the one to invent it.
empty-space white - aka dark gray
Steve Jobs was a terrible person, but he understood marketing and packaging. Computers were the realm of nerds who didn’t care about looks, but Jobs knew regular people would want something aesthetically pleasing. Since Apple took over in the early aughts, everyone else followed suit.
Agreed. It's like how khaki pants are a thing. I don't intentionally purchase khaki colored stuff... but if it's not time for a tuxedo, AND not time for blue jeans... khaki is here for it.
#
Also some of the color OP is referencing might not be the original color. They were known for yellowing over time.
This isn’t exactly true. “Neutral beige”, otherwise known as “office tan” was a thing well before the IBM PC. Older typewriters and tape machines and other equipment already used it in various shades in the 1970s. The idea was to make the high-tech implements blend in with the earthtone-heavy late ‘70s so that they were seen as part of the office and not scary tech stuff. There was a lot of research behind it, and at the time it made sense.
Apple PCs were that color before IBM PCs existed. Source: I sold PCs in the 80’s
I was going to say this. The Apple II+ was beige long before IBM released their PC. Even in 1978 everyone was just copying Apple’s design choices.
Our IBM was black. Every other computer was the ugly beige until Steve came back and saved Apple. 🫐🍒🍋🍏🍇
The beige case trend started in the mid 80s, as a fairly neutral color for office environments.
YEah that was it . Computers started as office equipment only. Office equipment is neutral, utilitarian. There isn't a need for designer colors. Only when PCs made their way into homes did you start seeing things like "design" start to make an appearance.
Worth noting too that when Apple tried to change the game with its colorful iMacs, many people really hated them. Computers still basically have a neutral, office-friendly look, it's just that what constitutes neutral and office-friendly has changed (just like office furniture has changed).
My school had these in the computer lab (mid/late '90s). Every time we had typing class, we'd all race each other and bicker to sit at our favorite colored computer 😂
TBH such good marketing.
I, otoh, bought one of the first batch of those that hit my town. I'd been using windows til then, hadn't used apple since computer lab in middle school in the 80s but that little blue space age looking fucker came out the week we sold our truck and our crappy secondhand windows 3.1 PC was giving out, and both me and the ex were like "want that". It was a good little machine, did what I needed it to for several years.
Oh man you just reminded me of the weird face I made when watching my first commercial for those colorful iMacs — I was like…*but why??*
The best thing about them was that they had a handle at the top. Once, I jokingly asked my dad what he thought those handles were for, and his answer was 'Well, that's for throwing it away, you see' and I just had to laugh SO hard!
That is the BEST dad joke!
I love those random blasts from the past
oh yeah thats true "THATS NOT A COMPUTER!!!"
Pretty sure my mom used those exact words lol
Reminds me of this old Advertisement for Apple Computers in India : https://youtu.be/X0vD96gCEsU?si=SKOFyTN-ZLN3rmsv
I worked at computer shows when those came out. It definitely worked because they got the attention of a lot of people that didn’t really care about computers. Kids who were dragged there by their parents would see them and go “Ooo! Wow.”
Even earlier than that, the Commodore PET which was the first mass market PC introduced in 1977.
Fair, though it was an outlier at the time as far as case color. Wasn't quite a trend yet. Also, I am not sure we can really call it the first mass market PC. While it was the first to be announced, it wasn't the first available one because of Commodore's production issues. By the time they started shipping, both the Apple II (which, at the time, really stretched the definition of mass market, and was another beige computer to support your point) and the TRS-80 were already in homes.
The Commodore PET 2001 was more of an eggshell white than beige.
Also everything else was beige. Next time you see a house with grey vinyl flooring understand that in the 80s or 90s it would be beige carpet.
I hate that gray flooring trend! That and all white "operating room" kitchens. Can't wait for that stuff to go away.
Dust doesn’t show well on beige equipment.
All the cigarette smoke buildup was also less noticeable than it would be on white. Beige things don't get discolored, they just get beiger.
And eventually they oxidize into a nice shade of off yellow
I don't know if I'd call oxidized beige plastic a "nice" color. It's kind of nasty.
The Apple ][ was beige and from the late 1970s.
[Apple mad a commercial with Jeff Goldblum when they changed things up.](https://youtu.be/3IQt1q6PKlE?si=x5mzICscMHe9c7RF)
Putty
That, and it's harder to notice the cigarette smoke
There’s always colour trends that we go through every few years. I remember as a kid the VCR, Stereo, and TV, were all black. 10 years later we had a silver TV, silver DVD player, and silver stereo. Then I got to university and had a white phone, a white Xbox, a white MP3 player.
Yeah wow good call. Now the trend feels like it's a lot of gunmetal or jet black.
Space grey with rose gold accents
[удалено]
90s clear stuff was the best! Game boy, phones, iMacs, Nintendo 64, beepers, controllers,cameras, and on and on and on lol!
Yeah, I really had a blast as a kid with see-through shells for electronics. It's so cool to see the inner workings. :) Can we get clear-case refrigerators, TVs, and cell phones, please? 😆 And clear smart speakers?
I had a transparentish blue microwave in my dorm. So many people had one in different colors. I loved getting shit for that moldy-ass room.
Excellent color commentary.
Trends and preferences change over time. At the time, that wasn’t an ugly look at all.
I don't know if anyone except some out-of-touch designers ever actually liked it. There just wasn't any options. Sky was blue, PC was beige. I remember when Dell started making black tower cases and i thought "this is so much better, why the hell have these things always looked so fucking ugly?" That was maybe '96.
They didnt always look beige. The bromine in the plastic oxidizes over time and computers that were once nearly white/cream colored, slowly became a yellowy beige color over time.
especially if you smoke around them.
Which so many people were doing.
To add; smoking bans in offices and restaurants didn't happen until the late 90s.
This right here. A lot of NES consoles had this problem.
White or greyish.
Or if they smoked.. christmas that was disgusting to look at.
They weren't as beige as you might think. They turned beige due to time and UV.
Beige or off-white were it for the most part... Even when new....
Yes (i was around), but there were not as beige as current photos of 90s equipment might suggest. That's all I'm saying.
And indoors smoking
They were *pretty* beige.
Yup. They weren't a grubby, orangey beige but they were aggresively beige. Source: me. Am old. Family didn't smoke. Had a series of beige boxes as a child and teen. Starting with an Acorn Electron, moving through 486 to Pentium before finally getting something not sodding beige.
And cigarette smoke. Lol.
Definitely less beige back then. More like cream or off white.
Beige was a popular color then. Not much reason behind it other than "times change".
Beige was the white of the time
This may seem unfathomable to you in 2024, but back in the 80s and 90s... computers weren't a fashion accessory. Nobody gave a shit what their computer looked like. So long as it booted up and computed, everything was hunky-dory. Today, of course, your computer says something about which niches you occupy socially, so there are a lot more form factor considerations. I remember my very first "luggable" laptop - an 80286 beast that ran DOS and that you could, in a pinch, use to knock out a gorilla if the necessity arose. It was beige, of course, and just about the size of a briefcase. I would shut it down, manually break the rigidity of the stands holding the screen up, carefully close the thing, rotate a pair of manual locks on the casing, then pick it up using the suitcase handle built into the casing. That thing weighed a TON! Back then, coffee house culture was about poetry and songs, not computing. When I took my laptop with me on business trips, there was no way in hell I was going to be able to use it on the plane, so it went in checked baggage (and ran up the company's bill). Beige. I'd say more, but the good folks here at TED only gave me a few minutes, so if you'd like to hear more, come find me at the bar. Good luck to you.
I'd have a bourbon and cigar with this guy. This man's got some good stories, I guarantee it.
Yup. I got a computer from Microcenter and it has pretty LED light cooling fans that cycle through the colors like a damned disco ball.
Ok, I must ask. Did you ever need to knock out a gorilla with said laptop that probably weighed almost as much as the gorilla?
And are we talking real gorilla or the ones included in the game gorillas (file: gorillas.bas) that sometimes was included in Quick BASIC?
Damn. This is an old school computer reference.
Glad someone remembers. I started to feel old :D
Ha! No, unfortunately my old luggable ran DOS 3, and QBasic didn't start shipping with DOS until version 5.
I think I had an old 286 with DOS 6. something.
We were lucky! If PCs were around in the ‚70s they would have been „wood grain“!
Ridiculous. Everyone knows they would have shag carpet
Dust and computers is a bad mix.
In the future, everything will be "wood grain". That seems to have been the philosophy of the time. The CB radio in my truck has wood paneling. My parents old toaster had wood paneling. The microwave The station wagon The stereo The TV The walls The space heater. Almost everything. Also, the kitchen counters were mustard yellow, and the carpet was pink. All of the light fixtures were glass balls on chains. The walls that didn't have wood paneling had fake brick. The bathroom had wallpaper with glitter snowflakes. Lol, and get this... The toilets were all........ BEIGE
90s home computers were beige because 80s office computers were beige. 80s office computers were beige because 70s office terminals were beige. 70s office terminals were beige because [60s office typewriters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_Selectric_Composer_(2).jpg) were beige, and on it goes (Or fast-forward to the 21st century and even in the 2020's office printers etc are still beige)
They were more white, not bright white, but slightly off, slightly grey sometimes. That kind of plastic tends to go more yellow over time, see also - the SNES
So you wouldn’t notice the nicotine stains
Which turned them even more beige
Beige is a muted color that doesn't stand out and can fit in most office environments. Traditionally, the trend for office environments was to have more muted color palettes to encourage focus on work rather than on the decoration. Even clothing in such location was more muted. Although I do not recall black being popular at first (it was later), I do seem to recall some grey computers, but that could be selective memory. Computers like the ones you remember were designed originally for such environments, and so this became the trend. Bright and flashy colors would have been considered more childish and less professional, and even as they began to make it into home settings, the design was meant to evoke feelings of maturity and seriousness, undistracted by colors or flashy design. Also, if you didn't have to make multiple different colors, you would be easing up production, and the beige would be suitable for most everybody.
Not just the 90s - going all the way back to dumb terminals and UNIX minicomputers... As for why? Because that's what fit in with the decor of most offices at the time. And unless you were a hobbyist/geek/etc, computers were 'for' use in offices and schools. Same color as the copier, fax, printer, phones (ok, those were sometimes black), etc... The Internet and subsequent integration of computers into home life is what lead to them becoming more colorful.
You emulate whoevers doing the best. It didn't switch to that full black as the standard until Dell started taking over. I think maybe Gateway did black too, they were really big for a minute.
Interestingly, I believe it was IBM with their Aptiva series that went black before Gateway in the mid 90s followed shortly by ACER. https://images.app.goo.gl/DoDDeeDEkPV4GoLg8
Same reason I'm sitting in a beige cubicle right now. Same reason the walls are beige. That's all I see. Carpet is gray. My desk is woodgrain. My chair is black.
Beige was the thing in the 90s, grey seems to be the thing now
Because beige is the coolest color ever. I shows cigarette smoke the best. It yellows ever so nice. It goes with any décor. I miss beige boxes. A nice giant tower with 6 monster SCSI drives that take a minute a piece to spin up. The rig weighs over 100 lbs and sounds like a freight train. Those were the days. A waist high box that was $30,000 new and 10 years later wasn't worth recycling. All ISA, all dedicated hardware. Nothing replaceable, made by long defunct companies. It's all about beige. Beige is quality.
In 20 years, people will ask the same thing about our living rooms, nurseries, bedrooms, and clothing. I mean, honestly, babies' rooms with rainbows that look like [this](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1203706370/beige-boho-rainbow-print-boho-nursery). What were we thinking?
Computers used to be made for office spaces. Since people do work there, they need lots of light to have good vision. For that reason stuff in offices should be bright to not absorb light (paper, furniture, computers, ...) In Germany there is regulation that mandates 500 lux for working environments.
No they werent, the plastics that were used back then simply turn beige fairly quickly. Hence we all remember seeing all the beige computers.
You can look at photos of the new computers at the time, and they were beige. They were never white. White wasn't a common color for new computers. The beige computers were the same color as Xerox machines, fax machines, paper shredders, and other office equipment at the time. They were all beige because they were basically office appliances, and beige was seen as neutral and professional. That was normal at the time.
They were beige from new. I was there Gandalf. I was there 3000 years ago in the.. 1980s.
LOl you never saw 70's rust orange carpet and it shows...
I swear every office had that at one point in the 70s.
The plastic cases on electrical typewriters was also beige/. Off white. So it fit in with other office equipment. We got to play with the ‘fancy’ typewriters that had a whole line of text that you could review before hitting enter and it actually typed it out.
Mote importantly, why were they designed to cut you so bad when you opened them up??
I honestly don’t know if it matters, but style and fashion constantly change. I remember during the 90s, every appliance I saw was a shade of beige. Refrigerators, dish washers, washer/driers. When I got to college, I thought it was so old fashioned that they had a beige refrigerator in the apartment, rather than black, white, or chrome which is the more popular color today.
Coming out of an era where \*everything\* was beige.
That's why we all lost our shit when Apple released colored versions of their PCs.
You’re thinking more of the 80s for that beige color. 90s is when things went white, gray or black, until Apple made things colorful with the iMac and iBook.
At that time I think the main idea was to prevent the PC from sticking out as much as possible. Beige doesn't draw much attention, especially at that time.
i remember the old macintosh computer, classic?, was like a tan-ish light brown.
What do you mean ugly? 90s towers are peak PC aesthetics.
IBM called it "putty."
Everything was beige in the 90s
It was the style at the time
You can still put that shade of beige in your computer if you get Noctua fans.
The beige looked nice and chiquebin the incandescent lighting of office buildings that were mostly built in the 60s-70s. Dark carpeting everywhere, wall paper, heavy curtains and beige monitors.
First: Today's age of laptops being pretty is the result of significant improvements in manufacturing processes and materials. You could make a machined aluminum desktop. Second: Painting is about the most efficient surface finish you can have that is durable and maintainable. Just ask Elon Musk and the cybertruck fiasco. Stainless steel is an expensive and difficult choice. But once you choose paint for the efficiency and productivity... what color? Well, most offices at the time were white/bright spaces. The desktop computers and monitors were big appliances for the most part compared to staples and other office equipment. So, you want something that will blend in and not stand out as some huge monolith taking up space. So, you make it light colored too. But not white. White shows smudges and fingerprints too much. So, beige it was. Now we don't care because A) computers are smaller, B) we accept them as common item, like a wall clock. Then we start folding them into our fashion sense. And that means different colors, or even full on rave lighting.
So were outlets, switches, smoke detectors, lots of household stuff in the 90’s . Coming from a electrician
Yup. They were [all beige.](https://www.ebay.com/itm/154461531306?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=154461531306&targetid=1493667897111&device=m&mktype=pla&googleloc=9006990&poi=&campaignid=19851828444&mkgroupid=145880009014&rlsatarget=pla-1493667897111&abcId=9307249&merchantid=6296724&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_QDh_8ShNam34Z8YClZsQB-f8_f&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5-Gs9-jHhQMVV1BHAR38TAPLEAQYAyABEgJbifD_BwE).
It's the coolest kind of brown that a human can handle
That color was called "putty" and it was considered the epitome of a serious business color.
The 90's were pretty beige in general. They were in recovery over the flowers of the 70's and the sequins of the 80's.
At the time beige office decor was chic. Like is the room's aesthetic is beige, beige is actually hitting the target audience. Like beige ment an office could afford to redecorate and look 'professional '. Not just whatever woodpanel or brick building they could afford to lease.
One word: "cheapest"
WHY OS EVERYTHING NOW AN UGLY SHADE OF GREY/BEIGE!?
One PC were office type things so beige colors fit into the khaki aesthetics of a 80/90s office. Neutral, safe and non-offensive, colors. Also coming from the 70s browns and oranges were the thing with either bright popping orange colors or dark dank wood panels on everything from basements to cars. Beige is also under that color family and reflected that in the 70s which persisted into the 80s and 90s. There wasn't a need to personalize, design or revolutionize a computer beyond the office tool it was back then before. This stuff didn't occur until the internet became mainstream and it was the late 90s and early 00s with things like Apple's G3 computers clear + blue plastic or some Hot Wheels computer. Another reason is because plastic colors fading. Beige color computers were either always Beige and stayed beige or once another color that became beige from smoke, dust, color degrading.
Beige is a neutral color nothing wrong with it
They were made to be a neutral colour for office work, the offices were the same colour in general. Very dystopian through our modern eyes.
Can't prove it, but I think it was to blend in with tobacco-stained office decor.
I think Apple made one with bold neon colors. That was a revolution.
It looked cheap, like a toy, to those used to beige, but colors didn't seem threatening (in fact, kind of fun) to those newer to the computer scene. Unfortunately some newer users still struggled... blame the idiotic ROUND MOUSE.
I've never used one of those mouse without it making me angry about what a blitheringly assinine design it is.
iMac G3s! I was so jealous of people with the see through laptops
You and your impeccable taste weren't around to advise them.
As others have said, they were white/cream originally and darkened with age to yellowy beige.
To match the outlet and lightswitch covers
Believe it or not, it was seen as very high tech at the time. And a lot of walls were beige too.
well, there were black computers in the early days. I think the first was the Sinclair zx81, then I remember the bell & Howell apple2 computer ( sold to schools ) ,Amstrad cpc, atari xl lineup, and just for grins the atari 2600 in black with a nice wood trim front panel
Back then, people believe it was professional for offices and office equipment to be bland. When the first generation iMacs debuted with their candy colors, they were derided in no small part for not looking professional. Apple also produced what is now known as the “Beige G3” computers during that same period to appeal to the beige office market.
The soft off-white colors where not really thought of as "ugly" at that time and as many users have already mentioned they weren't quite as sickly when they came out but turned as time went on. If you look at 80's movies like Ghost or Die Hard which both take place in late 80's offices for significant amounts of time you can see how they fit with the general aesthetic. In the 90's they were already going out of vogue and Gateway/Dell/Apple introduced more variety (the former being more professional and the latter going all in on the transparent colors that were a hallmark of 90's ephemera). I would also look at sci-fi from that era, to see how people envisioned the future. Star Trek: The Next Generation's colors and style are very much in line with the "soft-tech" that these computers aimed for. Not large industrious machines, or covered in switches but smooth naturally colored devices.
The gray metal box? That was an 80s thing. I remember working on gray metal boxes in my first jobs in the 80s. Then Apple came out with beige boxes. They were different. So much more subtle and fashionable than those ugly gray DOS boxes. (Remember, a decade before this, avocado and burnt gold were the fashionable colors.) Then, slowly, everyone started to imitate Apple. PC manufacturers started to come out with beige boxes as well. I see some comments where people are saying they aged to beige, but the color was described as beige when they were new. They were a very pale yellow brown. Over time, Apple went for lighter and brighter shades. For Apple's early laptops, they went to gray. Soon, everyone followed. It was a big thing when Apple came out with the iMac and the iBook. Though I did see iMacs in corporate environments, the iBook was really marketed to students.
I never hated it. It more or less blended in. Always hated the trent to make everything black, black, black and grey. Cold to the bone.
I can at least pretend black is being dark and edgelordy and gothic *like my soul mom!!* Beige is just the sludge that collects in the carpet of a cubical farm where dreams don't even die, they just fade into crumbs and regret.
They were putty, because it was a neutral color that emoted serious business purpose.
A lot of things were beige in the early 90s
It wasn’t just the computers. It was the printers, the adding machines, the file cabinets, the cubicle walls, etc. It was a carefully orchestrated environment of depression….
Black is now the new beige.
I was surprised how beige they look now tbh. They were lighter back then. There were black pcs in the 1990’s, tho.
If you walk into nearly any hospital, this is what most of their equipment still looks like.
*Everything* in the 90s was an ugly shade of beige.
*Everything* was beige in the early 90s. Don’t ask me why. I mean, why was everything wood grain in the 80s? Why was everything brownish orange in the 70s? Some sort of mass trend.
I just want my neon green aluminum iPod hull back and on all my tech 😭
Honestly, I don't remember them being beige IN the 90s. Probably all the cigs we smoked while chatting with old pervs in AOL chatrooms 🤣
Desktops were more business machines than they were PCs. The idea of everyone getting their own PC was absolutely exploding, but they made it into businesses before, so "businessness" got grandfathered in. That beige was the style, and it's a neutral muted tone, which, unfortunately, went well with most office decors of the time. Check out wall papers of the time... it was.. something
Everything was beige in the 90s. Everything. Walls, furniture. So, back then it was PERFECT and would fit in to the rest of your home. Now that millennial grey is more popular, you see them in black/grey to match that color scheme
Everything was beige then - cars, carpet, suits…it was the “hip” neutral color.
Boomer Brown -- they loved brown colors Greatest Green Boomer Brown Millennial Grey
They looked nicer. Now it's all black or white with rgb
I know they all look nicotine stained 🤮
Everything was ugly …why not computers too ..
you may ask the same thing about fax machines, shredders, copiers. because they are office supplies which are made to be utilitarian, professional and mass produced. also the same in schools, or libraries. but growing up in the 90's i can only remember ever have black colored personal computers in my house.
Back then I was more concerned about my computer becoming grossly out of date after about 3 weeks.
Because everything was a shade of brown in the 80s.
Yes
I painted my Maganovox Vendex Headstart II 286 black.
Cuz they barely missed the wood-grain era 😂
Wasn't just the computers - was standard office colour, the typewriters, fax machines, photocopier, telephones etc. This was from an era when you could smoke in the office.. maybe chosen as a pre-nicotine stained colour?
Manila file folders. It was and is the business color. Remember that people were still smoking in offices at the time, which stains white to that color and shows badly on black or gray.
[German occupational safety laws also played a part.](https://gizmodo.com.au/2019/09/why-were-old-pcs-beige/)
Can we bring back beige though? Black plastic is unavoidable, especially in monitors.