geekhack
geekhack Marketplace => Great Finds => Topic started by: Snowdog993 on Sun, 10 May 2015, 20:39:57
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That's not a bad deal for a White (Pearl) Label 101.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Keyboard-PN-1391401-Made-in-the-USA-11-13-90-/271847714727
One of the better finds on ebay at this time.
Edit: Getting "politically" correct.
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Great deal, actually.
I prefer Dorkvader's philosophy of calling these "beige label" since that is what they really are.
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Great deal, actually.
I prefer Dorkvader's philosophy of calling these "beige label" since that is what they really are.
This kinda reminds me of the "Blue Dress" uproar. :eek:
http://www.sodahead.com/fun/is-this-dress-white-and-gold-or-blue-and-black/question-4726454/?link=ibaf&q=&esrc=s
I had to go to Clickykeyboards to verify this. My goodness!
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm/fa/items.main/parentcat/9229/subcatid/0/id/587199
Hell, I even went to Phosphorglow too.
The whole subject is silly. I have always referred to them as White Label for as long as I can remember.
To be technically and politically correct, it is IBM Pearl White. (There are a lot of different white colors too!)
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Dork's a great guy, but I'd have to agree: It's more of an off-white, eggshell, or putty. On the colour scale, it'd be a very pale grayish-yellow.
Technically, beige is a very light brown or gray-brown. (I say this not only as a graphic artist, but because I just looked it up in the dictionary.) To qualify as "brown", a colour must have a significant amount of red, and IBM's colour has virtually none. It's on the other (non-red) side of yellow, toward green.
IBM's official name for this color was "pearl white". Unicomp still call it that (http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/UltraClassic).
So while it's certainly not a pure white, "white" is much more accurate than "beige"—and I know you guys are into accuracy.
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Love these old quotes:
In 1981, IBM released their first PC. In 1984, it came equipped with the Model M keyboard. This computer keyboard was wildly successful because it was so easy to use, users didn’t have to convert their typewriters or provide their own build of keyboard to use as an input device for their computers. The Model M was a mechanical keyboard, and used the highest quality construction, giving typists the satisfaction of tactile feedback, acute accuracy and comfort. The only draw backs on this keyboard was that the “Shift” and “Enter” keys were reportedly too small for the majority of user’s preferences. Because of this, IBM made and sold “Keytop Expanders” which fit over the shift and enter key-switches to expand the keys. All of the keyboards at this time were limited in that they were only offered in two colors: beige and grey, until the late 1980s when black was introduced as an option.
The 1980s gave birth to the big beige box desktop PCs. Why manufacturers chose beige in those early days is a mystery.
These early computers required a rather large and sturdy desk to hold them.
About the time the personal computer turned 25 years old, the one billionth PC was sold.
"Beige shall be the colour of computers and the colour of computers shall be beige. Grey shalt it not be, neither shalt it be white, excepting that it then is painteth beige. Black is right out. Once the colour beige, being the colour of computers, be achieved, then thou shalt distributeth thy miscoloured components into the possesion of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."
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Well, sure, I've heard of the so-called "beige boxes". I've also heard people say "literally" when they mean "figuratively" (the exact opposite), and "I'm going to lay here on the floor" when they're not referring to sex, and "less" (rather than "fewer") when referring to things that can't be divided into smaller units, and "further" (rather than "farther") when discussing physical distance (although thankfully, they don't say "Don't wander off too fur!")... I'm sure I needn't tell you, people misuse all kinds of words.
I don't know the exact history, but I'm guessing that one tech writer—someone who didn't know more about colours, because they didn't have to—referred to computers as "beige", and everyone else fell into line because it was easy and because most people default to imitating each other.
So, I suppose that whether one refers to them as "beige" or "white" depends on whether one feels more comfortable joining the conforming masses, or would rather be a bit more accurate.
I thought that since so many of us are detail-oriented here, a bit more accuracy might be appreciated. It's everyone's choice, of course. :?)
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I've heard of the so-called "beige boxes"
Those of us who were using computers in the 1980s would not even think of calling them any color but "beige" .....
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Those of us who were using computers in the 1980s would not even think of calling them any color but "beige" .....
I was one of those people too, doing everything from a command line, and I called them "beige" along with everyone else. (PCs, I mean, not command lines—those were usually green, occasionally amber.)
LOL, I just got your "biblical version" thing. Indeed, people will believe nearly anything because someone else does. I must remember not to underestimate GHers' senses of humour!
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Okay, having said all that, I'm backpedalling on the "beige" thing.
I thought that if I could find an accurately coloured Model M photo, I could paste it into my graphics app and post a screenshot of where the colour lay (yes, that's how you say it!) in the spectrum.
Trouble is, I couldn't find any. All the shots I saw had skewed white balances—not one was even close to the nice, clean eggshell M I'm typing on right now.
Then I Googled "beige", and saw that what people consider "beige" varies so much that I no longer feel I can say what's "beige" and what's not. So I hereby relinquish my self-appointed position of Beige Expert. Carry on dudes!
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The keyboard is sold! Someone got a very good deal.
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Oh yeah, we were talking about that, weren't we? LOL