mildlyinteresting
Overhead light tanned our office phone over the years.
Discussion
I've often thought about how ugly a lot of color schemes were back in the day but just realized all those ugly yellowish white colors maybe weren't so yellow to begin with
They still weren't great. But because plastics yellowed so easily, it was at least less notable on a beige base colour than it would have been on white.
I think a lot of the beige was stains from all the smoke.
These yellowing plastics were the result of a chemical reaction to UV exposure over time. Old NES and Super Nintendos are notorious for this yellowing, but some people would never experience this because their Nintendo was tucked away in a small cubby under the TV protected from UV light.
Unfortunately tucking the Nintendo away in those tiny VCR cabinets contributed to heat and dust that killed the longevity of a lot of those old beauties. So many of the surviving units are yellowed.
That's why you swap the good guts into the good skins.
That is exactly what killed my NES back in the day. Tucked into a VCR cabinet one day the psu in the back on the console caught fire and that was a wrap, I got a Genesis with Sonic 1 packed in that week.
Man, we definitely weren't "replace your expensive game console toy within the week because it burned up" rich.
Naw middle class. I had already been asking for a Genesis and the NES was at least 5 years old at that point. Never got a SNES.
That’s also correct
They changed the plastic composition in later consoles revisions so you didn’t see it as much.
Over time, but not even the whole console initially. Some consoles you have segments go yellow and other segment not yellow at all, notably the hinge cover “flaps” where you insert the cartridge were one of the first segments and you still find these yellowed SNES with perfectly find segments of plastic in used game stores.
Correct! Last year I started collecting retro video game consoles and learned how to “retrobright” plastics. I was able to restore a Sega Dreamcast console and controllers, a PlayStation & its controllers using higher potency hydrogen peroxide liquid for items I could easily take apart like controllers, and for more complicated consoles, like the Dreamcast I brushed out hydrogen peroxide cream that’s used for bleach hair. After either submerging or coating the plastic I left it in a clear plastic tub that I then wrapped with a UV light strip. I learned that. It all plastics are made equal. Super Nintendo cartridges are relatively delicate so you want to check on that every few hours. The Dreamcast was less yellow, but required more time under the lamp.
Wow, very cool. I worked for years in a retro game shop but it wasn’t cost effective to repair these systems. Some crafty individuals would do it themselves, but never brought them back to show off the results so I’m jealous.
Definitely not cost effective; only worth it as a hobby.
It's frustrating, because there are always people blaming plastic yellowing on smoking, when that was true some of the time but most of the time it was just UV exposure, so I see a post like this and think "ah, good, this will open people's eyes to the UV-yellowing phenomenon," but even here in the comments on a post that's clear evidence of UV-yellowing, we've got comments like "I think a lot of the beige was stains from all the smoke."
Or painted that color so smoke stains wouldn't show
What's the difference really? Turns out the same either way
One color is “on purpose” which feel nicer
It’s just a part of how that plastic ages. ABS plastic is sensitive to UV, and will yellow over time like that, but PBT doesn’t. You can find some old PBT computers and keyboards from the 80s that still look new, because Apple used PBT for a while.
Agreed; smokers seem to have no idea how invasive and permanent their byproducts are. It's why ebay sellers advertise "comes from a smoke-free home", because of all the 2nd-hand stuff that's unusable because it stinks like an ash tray and is discolored by some degree of tar-coloration.
My guess is that all thrift store clothing has the same chemical disinfectant stench because it's the only process that makes clothing NOT smell like a bar floozy's hair.
Smokers know. That's why they used to tint old lady hair blue.
That’s not necessarily a “smokers” thing — often white or grey hair isn’t 100% and still has some pigmented strands mixed in. If those are blonde or light brown or reddish, they can give the whole head of hair a light brassy-dingy cast. Blue or violet tints, usually in the form of a toner mixed with 10vol developer (also there’re color-depositing shampoos and conditioners that work without developer), will cancel out orangey or yellow tones for a more neutral silver color overall. Go a lil too hard and you’ll have a definite blue/violet cast for a bit until it fades with shampooing.
I don't know if it's still the case, but I took an old phone out of storage and with some elbow grease, managed to remove the "yellow".
Many of them were. Source: am old.
I think those old PCs were genuinely that horrible beige colour from the factory. Who ever thought that was a good idea?
They looked modern but not overly techy. Big improvement from prior stuff.
Tbh there wasn't much prior stuff beyond mainframes at that point, the first home machines already looked like that.
Fair point.
This thread is making me doubt my own memories.
It's a mix. Old PCs were beige/cream-colored from the start. A lot of other appliances were white, and became yellow due to UV exposure.
That and oil based paints will yellow after a while. All of our white trim is a yellow white now. One day I plan to replace it with nicer trim. One day…
In apple design language, many of their cases were considered “platinum”. But they look beige now
I worked in a factory that produced a very yellow product. I once asked, "why not blue floors to find stray units while cleaning after each batch?"
"Well, you don't know what colour the floor was when they put it there, do ya smart-ass?"
I felt a bit dumb when I realised most of the things there weren't yellow at first 🤣
ABS plastic is cheap but UV light discolours it fairly rapidly.
The Great pyramids of Egypt were once all painted white with a golden crown at the top that made them shimmer and sparkle in the sunlight and now look at them.
Ngl, I haven't seen a phone with a cord in a long time. Lol
Im more surprised that it looks perfectly fine and not stretched out and/or one part permanently tangled.
It's because nobody has used it since 1997.
Good year
The tire?
Why don‘t you call the process oh changing your tires „retirement“?
Go to bed dad, you're drunk.
I'm dad, not drunk.
Tamagotchi, Men in Black, Spice Girls, Buffy, MMmpbop, Fifth Element, Men in Black, South Park!!
GoldenEye 007 on N64, too.
Gameboy color
“You forgot Men in Black though”
this is how you know you are in the good part of town
I remember stretching that cord out so far the phone came flying off the wall. You kids don't know how easy you have it now.
Can confirm... nobody uses these phones.
it is stretched, in a new one the loops touch each other. Probably just gravity though.
I've never seen a business (that wasn't a restaurant) or an office space with a cordless landline.
Very common in certain corporate middle management environments -- but they call them wireless headsets.
Worked for a Fortune 5 for a short while, and they had $$$ headsets that would work from the mens room.
And I heard more than one person participating in a meeting from there.
(And I've never had one with more than Bluetooth range :( )
An entire generation won't know the misery of trying to fix a backwards loop in a phone cord, only to cause another backwards loop by mistake.
While there is immense joy in finally reorienting it, unfortunately you can never really learn HOW you fixed it. Every backwards loop you fix must be done through trial and error, accidentally adding more bad loops and having to fix those as well.
If ever you DO manage to learn the magic process, perhaps through intense fixing of some psychopath's impossibly screwed up cord, I'm afraid the knowledge is fleeting and you must relearn it all over again the next time you encounter this problem.
Here's a better one....
When was the last time you saw a payphone/phone booth?
Saying this as a Canadian when I saw my friend leave the airport a few weeks back and I passed by a bunch of empty phoneless booths
I’ve seen phone booths (that contained phones) in airports within the last few years
Days ago. There's one near my place in LA I walk by somewhat frequently
How about one with the persons phone number printed on it?
That's what's under the blacked out part in the photo
Probably time you saw a doctor then. Or at least a dentist. Probably both.
Really? I've had one at every desk job ive ever had. Which has been 3
Yellowing in ABS plastic occurs when it is exposed to UV light or excessive heat, which causes photo-oxidation of polymers that breaks polymer chains and causes the plastic to yellow and become brittle.
Unless you have a UV light in your office, the yellowing is likely caused by simple oxidation. The area under the handset has less airflow so the process would be slower.
EDIT: u/venom121212 may have the right answer. My bad
I am sitting in my office at a plastics manufacturing facility right now. This is 100% from UV light from the fluorescent lights or ambient sunlight. Surface oils, dirt, and dust abrade and light alters the polymer chains over many years.
I worked in a composite fab facility years back. New building. Our new build had UV filters over the lighting. For some test coupons, I made a sheet of epoxy/fiberglass. We autoclaved it, unbagged it, and i left the paperwork over the panel over the weekend. I get in on Monday, move the paperwork, and say, "Huh, that's weird."
As the paperwork left a reverse shadow. With the lighting causing the polymer to darken around it. Analysis showed the UV output/risk was minimal. But the light itself was still banging off the chemistry causing molecular changes that I don't have the organic chemistry to understand.
Oh man what an awesome crossover this is! My other job (yay America) is in an infectious disease lab and I had the exact experience autoclaving broth and leaving my labels too close once 🫣
Oh interesting. Shadows left in the broth? Wild!
As an amateur cook, is this like a sort of broth gelatin? Because I've worked with agar in mycology. But it wouldn't surprise me if you needed to culture stuff on a meat-base.
Sorry, the labels got transferred to the glassware and tape haha.
Yes, you're right on track! We mostly use Tryptic Soy Broth (TSB) to mimic growth culture in the body.
Some epoxy resins require a UV cure - is it just that the resin exposed to slightly more UV was just further polymerised? I wonder if you left the shadowed coupons out fully exposed if the pale bit would eventually catch up. Surely it would all hit 100% eventually?
You're tipping into polymer science I don't know well.
We autoclaved to about 95% degree of cure/crosslinking. Full polymerization, as I understand it, begins breaking down the resin due to the increased energy you have to pump into it. 95% was totally adequate.
It's an interesting question though. If the area was kept in shade forever, probably not. I think they call it a "diffusion controlled reaction."
So like, you leave a heat-cure epoxy composite out on a table for a couple months. It'll get dry and crusty. But it'll never cure to 95%. Because the energy available simply isn't enough to overcome the tightness of the bonds that have formed on its own at room temp. It'll get to some low amount. Just say, 15% and then stop.
All exposed, yeah, it would probably become uniform for the same reason, given the amount of light hitting it.
Surface oils, dirt, and dust abrade and light alters the polymer chains over many years.
This is exactly the same as what happens with old NES, SNES, and many other things made of specific plastics. Can be reversed easily with some hydrogen peroxide and, ironically, UV light. :)
Probably not worth the effort for a landline phone though. XD
Wait, what? It can be reversed??
A lot of it is just surface level, so anything that removes the top layer can sometimes restore the look of the plastic underneath.
It's how people can fix car headlights that fogged over time, though you still need to add a 2K clear coat on top or it will fog/yellow again soon after.
Yes, and no.
If it's a physical film or buildup ON TOP of something, maybe torching will work. We torch parts that have a hazy finish sometimes to clarify. It's safer to use cleaners or solvents generally but also less fun generally.
If it's a chemical interaction where grease has permeated the pores in the plastic, you need something that will do the opposite of what the yellowing did. Hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizing agent and works great as pointed out above!
It’s called retrobriting. You can watch some YouTube video about it.
I too do retrobriting on my collection
The 8-bit Guy has quite a lot of videos on the process, including early ones where he messes things up by accident.
I'm not convinced that long-term, it's a good idea to do it.
Many old plastics had a brown chemical added that makes it less flammable, but over time it migrates to the surface.
So it's probably not removing any actual plastic.
Yep! YouTube channel OddTinkering has videos on it. It's a process called "retrobrighting"
You’re right. I did my masters thesis on polymer Photooxidation, and this is absolutely that. At least for polymers where there could be a carbonyl group “ >C=O “ then a non bonding electron absorbs UV light and then is promoted to the π* anti bonding orbital which destabilizes is group. This can readily react with oxygen and form a number of oxidation products which can end up cleaving the polymer chain. It can also make free radicals which are really just hyper reactive electrons in the molecule.
As a person in the plastics industry, do you get lots of random people thanking you for all of the convenience and affordability you bring to their modern lives?
Or quoting The Graduate at you
No, I'm the quality manager so people just bitch about Susan forgetting to trim a gate flush.
This is it. Any office phone old enough to have a cord is old enough to live on an office that has had lights without UV filters on them. Even incandescent lights emit minor UV (basically all lights do) and exposure over years of even minor amounts will degrade plastics.
Or, that is 25 years of grime and cigarette smoke
Yeah but that kind of plastic yellows regardless of grime and smoke. I've seen it plenty on old electronics including my own. I know no one smoked around those and they were cleaned regularly.
My super Nintendo yellowed and it was never near smoke. And I kept it dusted.
It’s caused by chemicals used back in those days to make the plastic more flame retardant. It leeches out over time.
If it bothers you enough to fix it, you can disassemble the SNES (or any electronics from that era) and get to where you have isolated the plastic pieces. Go to Sally Beauty supply (or other similar place) and get some 40 Volume Creme Developer and smear it all over the yellowed area. Wrap it in plastic wrap (like for food) and leave it in the sun for a few hours. Will be good as new! Make sure you have full coverage and no big blobs so it isn’t blotchy.
Do you know how to fix that sticky goop that leeches out of rubber parts on inexpensive products? I'm thinking the grip moulding of a $12 hair dryer.
I assume that stuff is due to the plasticizers in the rubbery plastic leaching out over time.
I think the safest way of dealing with that stuff is to use something like isopropyl alcohol/methylated spirits or liquid lighter-fluid (naphtha, the stuff you use in zippos) to try and dissolve and then rub off the residue.
(Using any stronger solvents like acetone or whatever is much more likely to damage the plastic and surrounding paint/finishes etc. so I really wouldn't recommend it as a first port of call).
I don't think paper towels or cotton pads tend to work very well for the initial removal when it's still relatively sticky, as they tend to end up just tearing up when they end up repeatedly gripping, I think I had better luck with those blue disposable dish cloth things (at least the initial removal when it's still really sticky).
EDIT:
It's also worth noting products like goo-gone for sticker residue are normally like 99% naphtha (with some aroma added), but at least where I live, it's usually much cheaper and easier to get little bottles of lighter-fluid that have a nice little applicator nozzle.
I've used goo gone on dozens of things for removing stickers and such. Like price stickers on my game cases and such. Never had any problems with it harming the plastic.
Yeh naphtha is pretty good with that, I assume it might cause issues if you just like soak plastics in it for an extended period (potentially making them brittle?), but at least for just quick surface removal it's pretty damn safe AFAIK.
And it rarely seems to cause any issues with removing or damaging paint and/or finishes (at least when just quickly applying it).
It always gives me a good chuckle about how well goo-gone did the whole aroma branding by adding in a tiny amount of limonene to make it smell like oranges, considering how often I see it referred to as citrus based (when it's actually like 99% naphtha).
liquid lighter-fluid
Yeah I saw a guy on yt actually trying and recommending petrol. Petro products in general seem good, I think WD40 was also an option.
as they tend to end up just like tearing up when they end up gripping
That's been my experience
I think WD40 was also an option.
Yeh, I imagine the actual carrier solvent or whatever for WD40 is probably some sort of hydrocarbon thing like naphtha; no idea if the more oily parts of it would help at all, and/or make it more of a pain to cleanup afterward etc.
I could see the oilier parts of it actually helping to a certain extent with the initial removal (so it's easier to rub the surface without it repeatedly gripping), but it might end up causing other issues with like staining etc. (since it's slightly brown).
some sort of hydrocarbon thing
Ah yeah ofc, so hydrocarbon solvents in general and then it all depends on which one has what properties. Oils would def have their place but prob just make it messy to clean up and make my dryer smell like wd40
Never tested it myself, but I read that n-heptane works wonders on old soft touch surfaces.
Thank you! I'll have to try it out.
I got an old laptop from the mid 90s on eBay and it was BAD. It looked like it sat with a notepad diagonally across the top since the 90s, so half was new and half was phone book yellow. That stuff made it perfect and there isn’t even a line between where it was stained or not.
Be aware that leaving it too long can cause the plastic to get brittle. I left mine about two hours.
I immediately thought of the same thing. Both my NES and SNES are yellowed in this way.
Sounds like Console Jaundice. Your NES and SNES need to get their acts together and cease drinking as soon as possible.
The real wisdom is always in the comments. Listen to this guy, OP. I didn't take care of my consoles until it was too late. Erry day is so precious. Nourish yr console livers while u can.
This also happens if you don't blow on your cartridges. The cartridges infect your system with jaundice. Source: trust me.
Sega Dreamcast was the worst, I haven't seen one in the past 15 years that isn't a disgusting shade of yellow. Super Nintendos seem to be hit or miss - I bought mine from a guy who had four of them for some reason, two of his were extremely yellow and the other two were still pretty ivory colored (which is iirc the original shade), despite all being stored in the same room.
I wish we knew what it was about that 80s/90s light colored plastic that causes it to turn yellow with age. I had read UV light at first, and I definitely believe that speeds up the process (look at IBM PCs stored in an office building that used fluorescent lighting versus in a house that used incandescent) but it seems to happen regardless of storage/usage conditions.
Yes I know about Retrobrite, but I've heard from people who have used it that it'll just get yellow again and faster the next time.
Thankfully there are people making high quality aftermarket shells out of new plastic, and you can get them in all sorts of colors. My Dreamcast is now clear as is my Wii and slim PS2, my GameCube will be once the Muramasa stock comes in... I forget if I replaced the shell on my still-decent-looking SNES or not.
I have the (now relatively rare) NES toploader that's been modded to have composite output, so that one's gonna stay like that unless it starts to turn.
Your mom told me that you were a 2 pack a day smoker as a child
And I kept it dusted.
blowing your cartridges out with your mouth, does not count as dusting brah.../s
Lmao. How else do people keep their cartridges clean? /s
Its funny that this color of yellow is synonymous with that era even though it's an age related effect
It’s actually from the chemical added in the 80s and 90s as a flame retardant. It leeches out over time and creates that affect.
effect, unless it's very emotional for you.
I cried. Profusely.
(I’m aware of the difference, I just type too fast on my phone)
Sega Dreamcast was the worst, I haven't seen one in the past 15 years that isn't a disgusting shade of yellow. Super Nintendos seem to be hit or miss - I bought mine from a guy who had four of them for some reason, two of his were extremely yellow and the other two were still pretty ivory colored (which is iirc the original shade), despite all being stored in the same room.
I wish we knew what it was about that 80s/90s light colored plastic that causes it to turn yellow with age. I had read UV light at first, and I definitely believe that speeds up the process (look at IBM PCs stored in an office building that used fluorescent lighting versus in a house that used incandescent) but it seems to happen regardless of storage/usage conditions.
Yes I know about Retrobrite, but I've heard from people who have used it that it'll just get yellow again and faster the next time.
Thankfully there are people making high quality aftermarket shells out of new plastic, and you can get them in all sorts of colors. My Dreamcast is now clear as is my Wii and slim PS2, my GameCube will be once the Muramasa stock comes in... I forget if I replaced the shell on my still-decent-looking SNES or not.
I have the (now relatively rare) NES toploader that's been modded to have composite output, so that one's gonna stay like that unless it starts to turn.
No, this is simply oxidation. Sunlight exposure can increase it but it happened to some plastics faster than others. I used to own a telecom reselling company. We would buy used business telephone equipment and certain models of telephones from different eras were more prone to plastic oxidation than others. Some of the refurbished phone sets we sold had to be painted. We weren't selling anything old enough to have cigarette smoke stains as smoking in a U.S. office environment typically stopped in the mid-nineties.
It happens regardless of smoke or grime. I have a Super Nintendo that yellowed pretty bad after being in storage since PS1 release
Odds are it's UV damage from fluorescent lights.
Adding to this, the yellowing comes from the flame retardants added into the plastic. These commonly contained Bromine, which causes yellowing as UV exposure breaks down the bonds connecting the Bromine and polymer
Fluorescent tubes DO emit small amounts of UV light, the discharge inside the tube is ultraviolet which is turned white through use of a phosphor but it is not 100% efficient. I have noticed boards in my sunfree office with the imprint of posters burned into them proportionally to the distance from an overhead light, black areas protected the surface underneath, white areas less so and bare areas got the full dose.
Yeah, I don't think this can be from anything other than light because otherwise you wouldn't have the lighter unaffected areas. If it were oils you would see it on the handle, and if it were smoke then you would see the discoloration everywhere. The handle doesn't physically touch the main body when it's put away so smoke would still pass between them, but that area would be shaded from the fluorescent lights.
Nah man, the phone def has melanin from being tanned.
Plastics don’t oxidise from airflow, it’s a process created by UV light and supported by (but not requiring) oxygen.
This plastic has yellowed from either daylight coming into the room, or the UV from the office lights. It’s nothing to do with airflow, and that’s pretty clear by the way the yellowing is not present where the handset has created a shadow.
It's caused by the bromine flame retardant. That's why all the old plastics turn yellow. It's possible to somewhat reverse the process with retr0brite, but in the end after a long time it will get yellow again, as the bromine is still inside the plastic.
This is very wrong.
u/venom121212 may have the right answer. My bad
Donate those ill-gotten 4500 karma points to charity!
Fun fact, the yellowness is a result of brominated flame retardants (fancy stuff containing bromine) AND ABS breaking down it's polymer chains, which is oxidation. The UV light just speeds it up so it gets all the cred. And the ladies.
Idk, looks like the "shadow" of unyellowed plastic is matching the angle of the light. If it was air flow, you'd expect an symmetrical tan around the indents.
The old baby monitor we had yellowed on half of the camera, right down the seam. Must be different types of plastic?
Clicked that link with the intention of very quickly seeing a SNES.
I wasn't disappointed.
Oh god I thought it was nicotine stained!
What was with the 90’s/early 2000’s obsession with beige plastic electronics? Like why did we do that, and why did it seem so normal back then?
It’s called fashion? Things come in and out of style
Transparent plastic trend was much better
It was a miracle material and making it pure white was a pain in the ass.
It’s also not that different than modern furniture color palettes, these styles come and go.
Additionally, when you replace 25% of your gadgets five years later, 'different shades of beige' looks better than 'new white and old yeller'.
I'm a big fan of "everything goes with black".
Pure white is hard to make. Kinda white is easy to make.
Modern colors. In 30 years we will look back at todays colors and say the same.
Coloring plastics isn't as straightforward as you think and costs matter.
White legos react the same way over time
Looks like my SNES
And like your SNES, I bet a bit of Retrobrite would fix the discoloration on the phone.
UV exposure. Super common for plastic. Phones, tvs, computer monitors etc. darkens over time
what’s that curly thing attached between the phone and the dial?
That’s so nobody steals the handset.
Like pens at the bank. Brilliant!
Whats a 'at the bank' ???
It's the place they make you go when you want to close your bank account.
That, little Bradley, is called a wire.
Bruh
One of those "this person didn't exist 13 years ago" type comments 😂.
fuck my knees hurt!
some kind of extendable usb cable?
Yeah it's to charge it, that's the charging dock.
A little chew toy for when you get bored during the longer calls.
That was something that if one part curled the wrong way or got tangled, could really ruin somebody's day.
It's UV that does that to plastic, so probably not from the fluorescents. More likely natural daylight was responsible.
Looks like decades of cigarettes.
This is mostly due to UV exposure on the fire retardant materials (often bromides) added to plastics.
Looks like it came from a smoke filled environment. There was a time when cigarettes were smoked everywhere.
Slather it in spf100
Bromine in the plastics actually caused it.
It's not light. It's oxidation. Same thing happens to old Super Nintendos.
It’s the classic ABS plastic yellowing into a beige color!
The yellowing is due to a flame retardant compound that was put in plastic to prevent fires.
You're right, Bromine.
Never forget the sunscreen
ABS or PC/ABS material yellows from UV exposure over years of exposure, unless a UV additive or coating is used.
Pic goes hard, ngl.
Aesthetically pleasing
Yeah the light has nothing to do with it
Fluorescent tubes do emit some UV
So you guys are just luddites or is this grandma's pantry in phone form?
I’ve had some toys with white plastic sealed in their boxes inside of a dark storage unit for 10 years and they still yellowed. That shocked me since I always assumed it was UV exposure that lead to that.
I fucking love those buttons, when I was a child I would stare into the abxy buttons on the original Duke Xbox controller and imagine how it would feel to be inside there. I wonder what that type of button is even called
I actually didn’t know that artificial light could do this. I only thought the sun could. Very mildly interesting.
Light is light. Just a matter of spectrum. Office lights are almost always wide spectrum.
It got the SNES treatment.
90s kids understand…
I haven't seen a phone with a cord in so long.
All of our PCs turned yellow
That looks more like nicotine staining.
This happens to all plastic.
I work at a factory that makes the airbags for Nike shoes.
They yellow after a few years as well.
Now look at that old relic.
Radon.
I think that’s nicotine staining from the 80s.
It’s 1982 calling on that phone!
Good lord is that thing from like the 1400s?
Originally, old laser printers emitted a lot of ozone and turned beige plastic yellow.
Another interesting thing is that Hydrogen peroxide 30% and uv light will return that plastic to brand new
The work is mysterious and important
Plastic jaundice. It needs to go outside more.
You can clean this with mr muscle with some shitty chem… i don’t remember what was that… maybe ammonia?
From corporate gray to hospital beige
smoker’s white 😮💨
Nicotine sheen
Marlboro Gold
American dream?
The reason for that is offices are constantly getting new stuff while hospitals are using the same old equipment for years and years. It was all the same color once.
Part of that is the new stuff has stupid gimmicks that break everything. But the old stuff just does exactly what it's meant to and nothing else and is easier to fix and is the same as the other 10,000s of models they have already in the process.
I thought beige was just the standard color for electronics in the 90’s and earlier. This makes so much more sense.