Color
IBM is not the grey colorless company that comes to mind.
Admittedly all the boxes did have, at least some prrt, covered with a grey panel that matched the grey panel on all the other boxes. The few boxes that had a desk surface had a light grey color for the surface, and all the surfaces did match. I’m not sure but I kind of remember some boxes would have, in addition to the dark grey, a light grey panel.
Then the industrial design team got a little crazy and added a color. The box might have grey panels on the end, but accent colored panels on the side. Pieces around a feature might have the accent color. There were, however, only 3 accent colors. You could get red or blue and on very rare occasions I saw the yellow. All the reds were the same, as with the blue and yellow.
A spiffy shop would select an accent color and all the equipment would match. A shop more interested in money might get used equipment and get it in whatever color was available. Some shops would have a variety of colors. IBM did kind of pick tones that would match, so you might see a muted blue along with a muted red.
One of my customers was cheap and they got most of their equipment used. They had some red stuff, some blue stuff, and even a few pieces of yellow. They wanted to be spiffy and asked IBM if they could get just the accent panels that matched. IBM said sure and quoted a price so high they were sad and kept the mismatched machines. Then the manager of the shop heard of Earl Schibe, a ompany that would paint your car for $29.95. The went to them with an accent panel and said can you match this color, they said yes. He asked can you paint this panel, they said yes again. He asked how much, they told him. He took all the accent panels off his equipment and brought them to Earl. Now he looked like a spiffy shop and no one, besides Earl, knew.
Another lovely story about the same shop. They were in a basement and some of the rooms with the programmers had gotten a little shabby. They could hire some company to come in and put a fresh coat of paint. They could also offer to buy paint, in any color, and brushes if the programmers would paint their office. Great, each programmer ended up with an office that was the color they liked, not the same shade of white as everybody else. One programmer took all the leftover paint, many different colors, and used it to paint his office. It was glorious with no two walls the same color.
The same shop moved to a new building, part warehouse and part offices. At the time they owned Marvel Comics and had the artists from Marvel come out from their Manhattan offices and paint a mural on the cafeteria wall. I ate lunch and looked at the silver surfer for years.