January 31, 2026
When screens wanted typewriter ribbons
An anecdote about backward compatibility
‘Color’ Meant Red-or-Black: Old IBM tale ignites a nostalgia brawl
TLDR: An engineer tried to add color to an old IBM screen and found “COLOR” only meant black—or red if you had a pretend printer ribbon, all in the name of backward compatibility. Commenters split between admiring IBM’s decades-long stability and mocking the pricey, quirky baggage, trading war stories and jokes about why computers still “print.”
A veteran dev tried to add color to an old IBM screen and discovered the “COLOR” setting only allowed black—or red if your screen pretended to have a printer ribbon. Cue the comments section absolutely lighting up. One explainer jumped in to say the “two‑color ribbon” is from printer days, and that’s even why computers still say print. The crowd went wild at this fossil from the past suddenly steering a screen in the present.
The big fight? Backward compatibility. One camp is swooning over IBM’s near-mythic promise that your code from the disco era still runs today. “King of backward compatibility,” they crow, noting you can find 50‑year‑old programs still humming on mainframes. The other camp? Eye-rolls and wallet clutching. They love the reliability, but groan that IBM’s world is “weird and expensive,” and that these ancient quirks keep haunting modern tools like a ghost that refuses to leave.
Meanwhile, the jokes fly: users imagine a 3270 screen asking for a typewriter ribbon; others confess to hoarding old yellow binders like “manual goblins.” A heartwarming twist lands as one commenter shares how their dad went from hot rods to AI, effortlessly decoding these legacy landmines. The verdict: IBM’s long memory is both superpower and curse, and the thread is united in awe—and hilarity—at a “color” choice that’s basically just red or black.
Key Points
- •The debugger ran on IBM System/370 and displayed on IBM 3270 CRT terminals that supported multiple colors.
- •The debugger output was monochrome, prompting a search for color highlighting options via the WRTERM macro.
- •Office documentation was physical and difficult to locate; the author sought IBM manuals including the REXX reference.
- •The WRTERM macro included an optional COLOR parameter with a default of BLACK.
- •Only RED was additionally permitted, and only on terminals with a two-color ribbon, reflecting legacy compatibility.