Big Blue

[Fred Shapiro]

On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote:

> 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.

This is the earliest citation from Nexis:

1981 _Business Week_ 8 June (Nexis)  "I don't want to be saying I should
have stuck with 'Big Blue,'" says one IBM loyalist.  The nickname comes
from the pervasiveness of IBM's blue computers.

Fred Shapiro


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