When did people stop being told not to eat or drink around computers?

CD-ROM drives were treated by some as cup holders and they became popular in the 90s.

It didn't cause the behavior but helps bound the timeframe for the phenomena.

An article from 2002: https://www.zdnet.com/article/ive-broken-my-coffee-cup-holde...

The year you bought your own for the first time, most likely. Or as soon as you got to college. That would have been the mid 80s for a lot of the first wave of 'PC' owners. And shortly after that, when we all realized any machine more than 2 or 3 years old was a dinosaur, and interchangeable replacement keyboards became cheap, that's when. So I'll say '1990' to be arbitrarily precise.

This happened around the same time mechanical keyboards and floppies were being phased out in favor of cheap membrane keyboards and liquid-impervious CDs. This was a progression throughout the '90s starting with the end of the IBM PCs and PS/2 machines in the mid '90s - replaced by cheap clones with even cheaper keyboards and CD-ROMs - to the introduction of the iMac in '98 with its (terrible) membrane keyboard and no floppy drive. Casual computing was pretty mainstream after that.

I remember how expensive computers were back in late 90s and early 00s - I think that was primarily the source of the warning especially if one could afford a laptop. In college I worked in computer lab and drinks without lids were banned although the only potential damage was just to the keyboard and perhaps monitor - with the PC ducked away under the desk.

That said, a couple of years ago one of my employees accidentally spilled a cup of sweet tea on a brand new costly MacBook Pro and fried it. (Here is a fun fact - Apple limited warranty does not cover liquid damage and AppleCare+ only covers up to 2 incidents!)

I almost added a policy but quickly realized it wasn’t going to work especially when coffee is almost a requirement for many of us - so instead, I decided to add AppleCare+ and also cover equipments via general liability insurance and hope for the best.

This reminds me that the last decade or so, we all collectively had panic about smartphones & driving - some states even have laws against it. But everyone now drives entirely clued to their phone - it’s scary to observe but I guess we’ve evolved to have a third eye or something in addition to collision avoidance tech in modern cars!

This is a personal anecdote from my college days in India (~early 90s). Our college had a mini computer/timesharing system and a separate PC network in our Computer Engineering lab. Those days we could enter the lab only after removing our shoes outside the lab (socks ok), presumably to avoid the dust from the shoes.

I never heard of that rule, else I wouldn’t have eaten a bowl of chili while entering Basic programs into a Vic20. Food and computers always went together.

Carried over from "No eating, drinking or smoking in the computer room". Went by the wayside at some point. Now I just make sure most of the crumbs get cleared away every now and then. :-)

I don't think I've ever really seen such a rule. Except in college but there everyone was carrying beer from the Friday bar to the computers (it was computer science so yeah) and nobody ever said anything. This was in the early 90s when they still were expensive and nobody had laptops.

I dunno I still keep food and non-water drink away from my computers. Mainly because I don't want crumbs or bugs around my computer.

But I suppose people have always broken rules in favor of convenience.

And I was taught to keep food and drink away from the computer in the 90s when I was a kid.

When the computer became a relatively cheap item, especially the input devices.

It probably has to do with changes in keyboards.

I was working on some ancient PCs in 2002, and was told to assume motherboards were waterproof, or at least dryable.

As late as 2016, I was being told crumbs destroy keyboards.

I had a costudent spill his entire chocolate drink over his computer in 04 or 05, so somewhere around there at the latest.

Generally I think it changed around when most people got their own computer and could make their own rules.

My childhood computer (an Atari 800) was stained with so many beverage spills and food smears it looked like a Jackson Pollock painting by the time I retired it and moved on to an Atari 130 XE.

The rules of "never eat or drink while using a computer" or "food and drink don't belong around computers" still applies in a clean environment.

My university still forbids people to drink or eat in the labs. TBF I never saw anyone got penalized because of that. The desktops are slow and outdated anyway.

I'm not sure there's a big bang moment. I think it's mostly that the keyboards and such are cheap and more water resistant today.

Eh I still do this, "no drinks in the computer room". Told that to my friend the other day and he thought I was joking.

It all changed when we started building computers that looked like fruit