What colour is the VIC-20 case originally before yellowing?

[Mozartkügel]

Hi! It's a bit hard to work out just from photos, but what colour is the VIC-20 case originally before yellowing? Is it white, natural white / 'cream' white or really light grey? Or perhaps the 'natural white' is just an early stage of yellowing? Or perhaps there's some regional and manufacturing differences as well?

Either way I think the VIC 20 looks really great! Even better than the breadbin 64. Personally I like my breadbin slightly yellowed so it looks light brown, in fact I don't seem to remember them ever looking gray even in the 80s.

[Stormcrow]

I'm not sure what the difference between those whites is, but my VIC-20 case is a sort of extremely light beige, just a shade away from white. The perception of the color is a bit influenced by the dark brown keys, the tan function keys, and the gold labels near the top. Very '70s in aesthetic.

[Mozartkügel]

I was thinking that too, that maybe the brown keyboard etc. impacts how you see the thing as a whole. Yeah, 70s aesthetics are wonderful I love how specific and distinct things, design, cartoons, movies and everything looked in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s decades.

[Stormcrow]

I'm not a fan of '70s aesthetics myself — all that brown and gold makes things look shabby to me, like they couldn't afford decent colors. Not that I'm blaming the VIC of looking shabby; in something as minimalist in design as the VIC, it looks just fine. It's friendlier than the corporate grey of the early PCs.

[orion70]

I do like the 70s aesthetics, which also happen to appear in many works of my favourite graphic designer. In Italy, many wonderful objects were produced back then. But I'd say, in the whole world.

[eslapion]

Hi! It's a bit hard to work out just from photos, but what colour is the VIC-20 case originally before yellowing? Is it white, natural white / 'cream' white or really light grey? Or perhaps the 'natural white' is just an early stage of yellowing? Or perhaps there's some regional and manufacturing differences as well?

Either way I think the VIC 20 looks really great! Even better than the breadbin 64. Personally I like my breadbin slightly yellowed so it looks light brown, in fact I don't seem to remember them ever looking gray even in the 80s.

The answer to that question can be found in the recently published TV series 'The Little Drummer Girl'.

The VIC-20 original plastic case's color was the same as those of most PET computers made and sold before 1981. However, PET computers had metal cases and so the color on them were much less affected by heat and UV light and so they still have today an appearance that's almost exactly the same as it was 40 years ago.

What does this have to do with 'The Little Drummer Girl' ? At least 3 times during the 6 episodes series you can see a PET, you can clearly see the CBM brand name on it and it is powered and running. Since this TV series was shot using modern professional digital cameras, you can have a relatively good assurance the color you see on the case is faithful.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7598448/

https://www.amc.com/shows/the-little-drummer-girl

Search for 'Gennady Fleysher plays Schwilli' and look in the background here: https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019 ... l-shannon/

The people who provided it... https://twitter.com/computermuseum/stat ... 0459780096

[Mozartkügel]

I'm not a fan of '70s aesthetics myself — all that brown and gold makes things look shabby to me, like they couldn't afford decent colors. Not that I'm blaming the VIC of looking shabby; in something as minimalist in design as the VIC, it looks just fine. It's friendlier than the corporate grey of the early PCs.

I do like it a lot but I can see not everyone loving it. I'm thinking more in the line of 'timeless' stuff being overrated and that I (and seemingly other people) get happy when they easily can recognize stuff from the past, more love to dated stuff!

I do like the 70s aesthetics, which also happen to appear in many works of my favourite graphic designer. In Italy, many wonderful objects were produced back then. But I'd say, in the whole world.

Those are some great designs! To me design from the 50s up to and with the 80s really stick out and each decade is really unique and easily recognizable, after that things got more bland somehow. The thing that's great nowadays is that there's so many 'retro'-niches all over the place so you can really indulge yourself and pretend you're living in a paralel universe

@eslapion Hey thanks a lot for the tip, that's very helpful!

[Kweepa]

Using a tv show as reference is unlikely to be accurate, as there could be colour 'correction' or colour balancing applied to the scene. Also the lights might not be white.
I would just search for advertising or manual images online, and look for the most consistent colour, or find an unyellowed manual.

[eslapion]

Using a tv show as reference is unlikely to be accurate, as there could be colour 'correction' or colour balancing applied to the scene. Also the lights might not be white.
I would just search for advertising or manual images online, and look for the most consistent colour, or find an unyellowed manual.

Well, I have a VIC-20 with PET style keyboard made in 1981 which has suffered very little UV exposure and I happend to have a Sony A6300 camera.

I can open up the case to get a shot of the insides which were obviously well protected from UV.

Tell me what type of lighting you'd like me to use and what white balance setting to set on the cam...

[ral-clan]

We had this discussion a few years ago on Denial (in 2007):
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... one#p16883

I believe the general consensus was that it was a "bone" colour. i.e. off white, like ivory. That would be what I have observed by opening up my old VICs and seeing the unexposed plastic. As well, I have a PET and can confirm that the colour matches.

[highinfidelity]

Indeed, it was an "ivory" or "magnolia" white. That kind of shade.

[ral-clan]

I do like the 70s aesthetics, which also happen to appear in many works of my favourite graphic designer. In Italy, many wonderful objects were produced back then. But I'd say, in the whole world.

That designer is extremely talented, by the way. Love those designs.

[highinfidelity]

I do like the 70s aesthetics, which also happen to appear in many works of my favourite graphic designer. In Italy, many wonderful objects were produced back then. But I'd say, in the whole world.

That designer is extremely talented, by the way. Love those designs.

How I wish that things were still designed that way and didn't have the shape of a suppository that everything seems to have today.

[eslapion]

How I wish that things were still designed that way and didn't have the shape of a suppository that everything seems to have today.

You have no idea how much I agree with you on this one!

I have recently switched from a Pentium D tower and I used the same keyboard on it I did for the last 25 years: Good ole' IBM.

Since the new i7 tower I now have uses only USB keyboards, I went for a HyperX alloy FPS which generates very much the same sound and feeling as the 1994 IBM PS/2.
https://www.hyperxgaming.com/us/keyboar ... g-keyboard

[cbmeeks]

I can open up the case to get a shot of the insides which were obviously well protected from UV.

Unfortunately, UV exposure is only a part of the problem. The ratio of bromine, quality of plastic, age, etc. all factor in.

For example, I had a C128 that was "whiter than white" when I put it in a box years ago. In fact, I had two C128's. The beautiful white one in the box (to preserve as my showpiece) and the really yellowed C128 for my daily use (before I knew about retro-bright).

Last year, I decided to open that white C128 to admire it and it was as yellow as my "ugly" one! It's literally been in a completely dark, sealed box on my shelf in a climate controlled basement for 10+ years. Now, it's yellow.

The good news is that the yellow is very uniform. And, I would say it's more of a "yellow-cream" color. Actually doesn't look bad.