The PowerCD, a portable CD-ROM drive launched by Apple in the early nineties, was originally intended to be blue.
The classic PowerCD, like mine, is gray, a color close to that of the PowerBooks of the time. However, from time to time, you come across photos of PowerCDs with a bluish color. The difference is hardly visible when the drive is photographed alone, especially since many screens and cameras tend towards blue and distort perception, but when two models are in the same photo, the difference is very noticeable.
Blue on the right
Blue on the left
The interesting point is that these aren’t actually prototypes. According to Apple’s support notes from the TIL (Tech Info Library), Apple originally planned to distribute a blue PowerCD for the general public and a gray PowerCD for businesses and education, but ultimately the company decided to stick with the gray model.
There were two models (by color) in NTSC and PAL. The Gray was for the business and education channels and the Blue for the consumer. This was the initial strategy. It has since changed. The Blue is no longer available. In Apple USA, model HOO14ll/A, which was Blue, changed to H0014LL/B, which is Gray. The only difference today between the business and consumer channel models are the CDs that come with the PowerCD.
