# What are redbooks?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-redbooks/236684>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 27, 2004, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-redbooks/236684 "2004-03-27T04:12:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-redbooks/236684/1 "2004-03-27T04:12:41Z")

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Following the great resonse to my DB2 question, now I’d like to know the origin of the term redbooks. IBM publishes a series of internally-produced technical books call “redbooks”. From what I can learn though, the term may not have originated with IBM. I found a reference to the original spec for CDs being called “the Red Book”, and other organizations seem to use the term as well. [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com), however, provides almost no help.

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**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-redbooks/236684/2 "2004-03-27T04:23:47Z")

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This may help: [http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/b/book\_titles.html](http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/b/book_titles.html)

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**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-redbooks/236684/3 "2004-03-27T04:36:27Z")

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For a long time, Redbook has been a women’s magazine in the US. A couple of decades ago, the “little red book” would have meant _The Quotations of Chairman Mao._

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-redbooks/236684/4 "2004-03-27T06:05:55Z")

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I don’t know how relevant it is, but the three-volume _Feynman Lectures on Physics_ by Richard Feynman, Robert Leighton, and Matthew Sands are popularly known as “The Red Books” because of their red covers. They were first published 1963-65.

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**Author:** ![Offkenter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f08c70/32.png) [@Offkenter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Offkenter)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-redbooks/236684/5 "2004-03-27T06:39:06Z")

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IBM redbooks can be found here:[http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/](http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/)

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-redbooks/236684/6 "2004-03-27T06:55:31Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> I found a reference to the original spec for CDs being called “the Red Book”, and other organizations seem to use the term as well.

I’m pretty sure that IBM redbooks predated CDs by a number of years. I suspect that the term or phrase redbook/red book is simply descriptive and that it is simple coincidence that IBM uses the phrase for its technical update bulletins. (I’m fairly sure that IBM did not, for example, borrow the phrase from the _Red Book of Hergest_, the 13th century Welsh manuscript containing the Mabinogian.) “Color” words appear in many IBM situations. We used to be ableto tell when a programmer got into the business by whether he referred to the “green card” (indicating an origin in the 360 days) or the “yellow card” (indicating a career begun after the introduction of the 370 technology. (Now the “yellow card” is printed on white paper in a yellow covered pamphlet.) The cards displayed theformats for various instruction types in Assembler and machine code, the most common print chain codes, a complete reference of the 256 hexadecimal values from 00 to FF (255) indicating their command value, ASCII print value, EBCDIC print value, punch tape code, Hollerith card code, and binary, hexadecimal, and decimal expressions.