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Paper and paper-like writing surfaces were non-white for a long time before we got bleached white paper.

We haven't yet had a glowing-white paper.

Traditional-normal for computing was a dark background.

There was likely a technological limit in the use of pure white at the start when "emulating" paper. VGA 16-color mode likely meant that the choice was between bright white and medium grey, which was too dark. Configurability has lagged behind though.

[markhahn]

no, if you think trad-norm is dark mode, it just identifies when you started using computers.