There is no set color for generic cases. Different cases used different color plastic, even some of the same cases used slightly different colors year to year. It is best to pick the color you like, then paint it that color. Or, you could always have it color matched. Take the face plate to an automotive paint shop, they'll optically interpret the color with a computer, and they can make you spray cans of the paint.

It varies, some are warmer ant tend towards almond, some are cooler and tend towards beige, and some are just outright light grey. You gotta experiment.

Just beige? Maybe to the layman, there's weathered limestone, vintage lace, old ivory, New York snow, LaCroix brown, pale wolf sleeping and Tusk! by Armani.

😂

Edit: Seriously, though, I once had a similar problem.
Finding a colour that matches the my Yaesu FT-101.
Turned out that "winter gray" was close, though a bit too white.

Rikintosh wrote on 2022-03-09, 18:07:

I know the title sounds stupid, but let me explain: I want to spray paint a case, but I don't know which shade of beige, has anyone tried any paint? I intend to find a matte or semi-gloss for the front plastic, and somewhere between satin and low-gloss for the metal of the case. The reason for painting instead of retrobright, is because the plastic broke, and I had to carry out repairs with plastic putty, sanding, etc, so it will need to be painted. I don't want the computer to be a weird color, I know that the traditional color of computer plastic is something with little pigmentation / saturation, I could go to a paint professional and ask them to develop a formula with the color I have in mind ( which will be a little more expensive) but first I decided to create this post, to know if maybe this color already exists with a name or code, because that would make my work easier

What I have in mind is similar to this image, the color I believe is a "star white" but with a small amount of beige

Good question. What color are they. And one color they are not, is beige. Beige is a kind brownish/grey and not the white one we think.
It is actually a lot of different color's and some beige can have a strong red tint to it. Or yellow. Some even green.
But what are they, other than off-white? There is a video on youtube, were the person is talking about this subject.
He dug into old documents and so forth, plus he took a lot of pictures and ran them through photoshop.

It turned out, that the top layer is white. But there are most of the times one or two colours under the white.
Some times it is a slight layer of some green colour, some times it is red and some times they even mixed yellow into it.
That is why we see this off-white that we wrongfully call beige. Just google beige and wikipedia or colour chart.

I would say that old PC cases were in reality, painted in off-white.

EDIT:
For retro/vintage-spraycolor. You might want to check out this article at hackaday. Spraycan color

Who started it though, Altair and Sol were blue in the main, and first PETs had a blue facia, Apple II was a real earthy tone, like they were tryna make the Hippies think of fresh shrooms, were IBM like "Yah it's ai'ght but dial back the Hippy three notches." and ended up a bit whiter, or what?

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-09, 22:29:

Who started it though, Altair and Sol were blue in the main, and first PETs had a blue facia, Apple II was a real earthy tone, like they were tryna make the Hippies think of fresh shrooms, were IBM like "Yah it's ai'ght but dial back the Hippy three notches." and ended up a bit whiter, or what?

Perhaps it was just the cheapest colour shades back then. One dollar saved, is one dollar earned. (or something)
Most of these clone-cases, were produced in Taiwan or whatever. Perhaps sweatshops with 10 year old Chinese workers?

My suggestion would be to try to match to the case colour to whatever beige drives you planned to install. I'd use panasonic floppy drive bezels as a reference if you can find one not yellowed.

brostenen wrote on 2022-03-09, 22:36:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-09, 22:29:

Who started it though, Altair and Sol were blue in the main, and first PETs had a blue facia, Apple II was a real earthy tone, like they were tryna make the Hippies think of fresh shrooms, were IBM like "Yah it's ai'ght but dial back the Hippy three notches." and ended up a bit whiter, or what?

Perhaps it was just the cheapest colour shades back then. One dollar saved, is one dollar earned. (or something)
Most of these clone-cases, were produced in Taiwan or whatever. Perhaps sweatshops with 10 year old Chinese workers?

Well possible. Or maybe IBM thought that gray/beige was most serious or neutral looking.
I guess it helps to imagine the pop culture of the 1970s (US).
Beige and orange seem to have been a thing.
And furniture in chippendale optics (Atari VCS), gray/white mainframe rooms, buildings made of reinforced concrete with boring gray rooms (unless painted, decorated).
And palm trees and jalousies in every room.

That being said, I'm likely too young to judge.
It was quite a bit before my time. Nevertheless, an fascinating era.
Lots of good stuff came from then.
Z80, 8086, m68k, mind-expanding stuff, Fritz the Cat, Abba, voyager probes.. 😀

Edit: Now that I think of it..
Hobbyist stuff was sometimes blue in the 1970s/80s.
Like the blue Weller soldering stations (TCP24 etc). Or the Heatkit equipment, which also was blue oe green sometimes.

Edit: I wasn't completely wrong, it seems. *phew*
Here's a catalogue from the 80s, with many DIY kits being housed in a blue shell.
https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalog … 7-Christmas.pdf

The Wellers were popular enough to be
used in the 1980s to build hobbyist's satellites. Or maybe that just was an European thing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGan3WE8C64&t=180

Yes, I know there are millions of colors of what we call "beige", each manufacturer, or even review, batch, has a shade, I mean about an "average" to be able to use universally in other projects.

I don't have any case that has this original color, they all turned yellow, even after retrobright, I think because I live in Brazil, and it's hot here (I keep my computers in the dark, away from sunlight, and yet they yellow, even on the inside of the case).

When I refer to beige, I know it's not beige, but it's a bit of cultural tradition to refer to old computers that aren't black, I got used to this term because of the macintosh forums I started using about 20 years ago Back then, everyone referred to macs until 1997 as a beige mac.

Once I was studying industrial design (I'm fascinated by it) and I read that IBM chose this "beige" tone because it was part of the 70's color palette, something more design oriented, it was almost an unofficial norm that electronic objects computerized devices were of that color, with a straight design, but rounded at the edges to prevent the user from hurting himself on the corners. Apple went a little out of the way with a project called "snow white, in short, this was like a norm, that all computers had to have a finned design, and a faded white color, just look at an Apple IIx, IIgs, or Macintosh Portable you'll understand. Next did something similar but using a dark color (not sure if it's black or a very dark gray) and IBM started doing black things with the Thinkpad line (actually the first it was a portable PS/2, which also set the standards for a laptop as we know it today)

In Japan, they were very fond of pure white, and there were even computers that used a glossy white case similar to an ibook g4.

Edit: A few years ago, I painted a case from the late 90's, early 2000's matte white, it was one of those cases that has a translucent blue front. It was good, but not in a retro way, it was a little too "modern".

This thread has some relevant discussion:

Best off the shelf spray paint for beige computer cases

I've found it extremely difficult to find paints that match plastics because as mentioned they vary a lot. And I've found that even though a colour might look correct on a sample, etc, it can look quite different when put hard up against a plastic bezel. Then of course there's the challenge of applying the paint nicely - I suck at it!

brostenen wrote on 2022-03-09, 22:14:

Good question. What color are they. And one color they are not, is beige. Beige is a kind brownish/grey and not the white one we […]
Show full quote

Rikintosh wrote on 2022-03-09, 18:07:

I know the title sounds stupid, but let me explain: I want to spray paint a case, but I don't know which shade of beige, has anyone tried any paint? I intend to find a matte or semi-gloss for the front plastic, and somewhere between satin and low-gloss for the metal of the case. The reason for painting instead of retrobright, is because the plastic broke, and I had to carry out repairs with plastic putty, sanding, etc, so it will need to be painted. I don't want the computer to be a weird color, I know that the traditional color of computer plastic is something with little pigmentation / saturation, I could go to a paint professional and ask them to develop a formula with the color I have in mind ( which will be a little more expensive) but first I decided to create this post, to know if maybe this color already exists with a name or code, because that would make my work easier

What I have in mind is similar to this image, the color I believe is a "star white" but with a small amount of beige

Good question. What color are they. And one color they are not, is beige. Beige is a kind brownish/grey and not the white one we think.
It is actually a lot of different color's and some beige can have a strong red tint to it. Or yellow. Some even green.
But what are they, other than off-white? There is a video on youtube, were the person is talking about this subject.
He dug into old documents and so forth, plus he took a lot of pictures and ran them through photoshop.

It turned out, that the top layer is white. But there are most of the times one or two colours under the white.
Some times it is a slight layer of some green colour, some times it is red and some times they even mixed yellow into it.
That is why we see this off-white that we wrongfully call beige. Just google beige and wikipedia or colour chart.

I would say that old PC cases were in reality, painted in off-white.

EDIT:
For retro/vintage-spraycolor. You might want to check out this article at hackaday. Spraycan color

Off White is how I see them with some of them tending towards the grey side of it and other newer cases being a brighter off white to nearly white colour.

Check "RAL 9010" color, I think that's about close to old PCs. Generaly colors around that "number" are in that "old PC beige" category.

Here is a summary of the work I previously did when trying to find a match for my Compaq deskpro.

I was looking at Montana Gold sprays the other day as they are very very high quality and have great adherence to plastic even w […]
Show full quote

I was looking at Montana Gold sprays the other day as they are very very high quality and have great adherence to plastic even without primer, and I noticed two that are outstanding: Shock White Cream and Pebble.

And with that, I broke down the alternatives into two groups; one for the more almond-like (Y>5%) cases akin to the Amiga 500 and and one for the more white-like cases (Y>5%) akin to the Compaq OEMs and most cases from the Pentium era and onwards.

The file is attached below.

I feel like RAL1013 for those almond cases and RAL 9003 for the whiter cases are mostly spot on. It also happens to be that I actually have a can of RAL 1013 at home, and Iplaced an order for a RAL 9003, so I will spray them side by side onto cardboard and lay them on a couple of cases I have around, and post photos of the comparisons next week.

Going by that:

• RAL1013 for almond-ish stuff like Amiga
• RAL 9010 for "warm" beige cases
• RAL 9003 for "cool" beige cases

Sound like good ideas.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-03-10, 07:24:

Here is a summary of the work I previously did when trying to find a match for my Compaq deskpro. […]
Show full quote

Here is a summary of the work I previously did when trying to find a match for my Compaq deskpro.

I was looking at Montana Gold sprays the other day as they are very very high quality and have great adherence to plastic even w […]
Show full quote

I was looking at Montana Gold sprays the other day as they are very very high quality and have great adherence to plastic even without primer, and I noticed two that are outstanding: Shock White Cream and Pebble.

And with that, I broke down the alternatives into two groups; one for the more almond-like (Y>5%) cases akin to the Amiga 500 and and one for the more white-like cases (Y>5%) akin to the Compaq OEMs and most cases from the Pentium era and onwards.

The file is attached below.

I feel like RAL1013 for those almond cases and RAL 9003 for the whiter cases are mostly spot on. It also happens to be that I actually have a can of RAL 1013 at home, and Iplaced an order for a RAL 9003, so I will spray them side by side onto cardboard and lay them on a couple of cases I have around, and post photos of the comparisons next week.

Going by that:

• RAL1013 for almond-ish stuff like Amiga
• RAL 9010 for "warm" beige cases
• RAL 9003 for "cool" beige cases

Sound like good ideas.

If you are brave and want something different for 1980's 8bit and 16bit (C64, Amiga, ST and so on), then take the plunge and go for RAL 6038 or RAL 2017. 😁

Great thread, very informative, thank you!

As I understand it, beige was used so the machines would blend in with most office environments, furniture, etc.
Technology was supposed to serve its function, not to be seen.
German OEM Escom pioneered black cases in the early 90s, including 386 pizza boxes and full towers that looked like custom made for Darth Vader. Highly sought after today.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-10, 11:10:

Great thread, very informative, thank you! […]
Show full quote

Great thread, very informative, thank you!

As I understand it, beige was used so the machines would blend in with most office environments, furniture, etc.
Technology was supposed to serve its function, not to be seen.
German OEM Escom pioneered black cases in the early 90s, including 386 pizza boxes and full towers that looked like custom made for Darth Vader. Highly sought after today.

There is also the fact that some European countries (had health regulations that office equipment should be light colored to increase light value in office environments. I believe black Thinkpads were even sold in Europe with a disclaimer that they were not intended for office use. I remember hearing this in some Nostalgia Nerd video and have no proof to back it up.

I ended up renting one and purchasing another color reader.
These are my measurements of a pretty nice standing Macase KS-330:
https://colorreader-fm.datacolor.com/palette/dGwJ510R

RAL Classic:
RAL 7032 - Pebble Grey (primary)
RAL 7044 - Silk Grey (alt. primary)

Sherwin-Williams:
SW 7051 Analytical Gray
SW 6170 Techno Gray

Akzo Nobel:
F06.06.69
G0.05.70

Basically the matches from Sherwin-Williams are the closes one, however it is questionable what would make sense in a industrial production facility in 1989.
The good ting about the RAL Classic colors is that they are obtainable in multiple spray paint versions.
For people wanting to spend the minimum amount to color match I would get RAL spray cans in 7032 Pebble Grey, 7044 Silk Grey and 1013 Oyster White.