Can anybody confirm that the IIc and IIc+ are different colors?
There were three colors in use at Apple at the time. I think 4, really, but for the sake of clarity we'll say three: beige, "Fog" and platinum. "Fog" was used on the IIc, ImageWriter II and LaserWriter. Beige was used on the the earlier Apple II line and the early Macs. The IIgs was the first to use the platinum color and the Plus, the IIe and the IIc had different colors prior to the IIgs.
We know that the Plus was changed to Platinum as well as the IIe enhanced before their production run ended. The question is really then, did the IIc change to platinum before it was replaced by the IIc+ AND/OR did the IIc+ change to platinum with its introduction or continue the original "Fog" case color?
Both the 4000 and 4100(revised) models of the //c were white ( what you are calling "fog".)
The //c+ was platinum.
Get it?
Mutant_Pie
All models of the Apple //c are "snow white" when new. That's the official designation. The first run had beige keys, similar in color to the keys on the original IIe. The revised //c models were still snow white, but had platinum colored keys. The //c Plus only comes in platinum and it's keys are off-white.
Apple has only used 4 colors on their early computers. The early II series was an creamy off-white color, lighter than beige. Later, when they switched from resin to plastic cases, they were all beige. The //c was the first and only Apple II to go snow white, and eventually everything migrated to platinum.
Not sure what you mean by "fog" colored - but Apple's plastics react badly to prolonged exposure to sunlight (and some say UV), smoking environments - thats why so many cases, beige or platinum, turn yellow. I can only assume your use of "fog" is actually a yellowed case.
Odd about the keys. Here's what "Apple Design" by Kunkle says (p. 40): "instead of a bright white case, however, Jobs decided to make the exterior a creamy off-white color (known in-house as Fog) with a darker khaki-colored keyboard". Reading the Kunkle, I'm not sure you could ever call "Snow White" a color -- it was a design language that was used after the corporate color was set to platinum. Kunkle only refers to Fog as being used on the IIc and its peripherals, ImageWriter II and LaserWriter (all of which incorporated the first "Snow White" designs created by Hartmut Esslinger's company Frogdesign). It was during the development of the Mac II that Apple chose Platinum as a unifying machine color and the IIgs and its peripherals were the first products to have it. I also believe there was a difference in color between the Apple IIs and the Macintosh line, the Mac family using Pantone 453 picked for the original Macinstosh. Would be interesting to know if any of the Apple II line ever changed to PMS 453 (or Fog for that matter) during their production run. The Lisa would have been the same color as the original Apple IIs since it matched the ProFile hard drive created for the Apple III and adapted for the II and Lisa use only.