"Bib Blue"

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Sun, 28 Jan 2001 04:22:53 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes:


>
>  I'm in love with a big blue frog.
>  A big blue frog loves me.
>  --Peter, Paul and Mary
>
>     The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Blue."  One is IBM, which is dated
to
> 1984.  The other is the University of Michigan football team, which is
dated
> to only 1987.

I don't have any citations handy, but the 1984 date for IBM is too late.  By
1984 the "Big Blue" nickname was so well known that a maker of an add-on
board for the IBM PC used the name "Baby Blue" for its product.  I believe
"Big Blue" refers to the fact that at the time blue was the most common color
for the side panels of IBM mainframes.  (It was not the only color available.
 At an installation where I worked in the late 1960's, a colleague from
Bombay India nicknamed our mainframe as the "Orange Baron" because its side
panels were orange.)