This is fairly old news now but MIT have developed a US$100 laptop that runs Linux for distribution to schools in the developing world via government programs. MIT has a website for the laptop (which is not yet in production), but the pictures that are available show it in a rather shocking luminous green colour!
The specs are (according to the FAQ):
The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, full-color, full-screen laptop that will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data. This rugged laptop will be WiFi-enabled and have USB ports galore. Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel.
There is no “Why that colour ?” question in the FAQ unfortunately..
I also guess that they avoided military-looking colours, colours that show dirt readily, and colours used for dangerous things, although there are some chemical drums made in approcimately this colour.
They’d also want to avoid colours associated with bad luck, and it also needed to be cheap too. Of course this is a sample size of 1, they may come in a small range, or it could be the old Henry Ford “any colour you like as long as it’s green”.
[…] The first working prototype of the Linux wind-up laptop at the center of the One Laptop Per Child Project has been demonstrated at the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange What’s Next Forum by Nicholas Negroponte running a cut-down version of Fedora Linux in glowing orange (at least it’s no longer shocking green). […]
yayayayayayayayayayay i WANT one. 🙂