The IBM 3279 was IBM's first colour Terminal. It was introduced in 1979. The 3279 was widely used as an IBM mainframe

IBM mainframe

IBM mainframes are large computer systems produced by IBM from 1952 to the present. During the 1960s and 1970s, the term mainframe computer was almost synonymous with IBM products due to their marketshare...

 terminal before PCs became commonly used for the purpose. It was part of the 3270 series, using the 3270 datastream. Terminals could be connected to a 3274 controller, either channel connected to an IBM mainframe or linked via an SDLC (Synchronous Data Link Control

Synchronous Data Link Control

Synchronous Data Link Control is a computer communications protocol. It is the layer 2 protocol for IBM's Systems Network Architecture . SDLC supports multipoint links as well as error correction. It also runs under the assumption that an SNA header is present after the SDLC header...

) link. In the Systems Network Architecture

Systems Network Architecture

Systems Network Architecture is IBM's proprietary networking architecture created in 1974. It is a complete protocol stack for interconnecting computers and their resources. SNA describes the protocol and is, in itself, not actually a program...

 (SNA) protocol these terminals were logical unit type 2 (LU2). The basic model 2 used red, green for input fields, and blue and white for output fields. However there were other models with seven colours and different screen sizes, and one kind had a loadable character set that could be used to show graphics.

It was designed at IBM's Hursley Development Laboratory, near Winchester, England.