Hi Brendan,

Although most searches came up with the information you have, let me try this theory on you.

I considered why would blue be the most valuable? I thought about the similarities with other phrases like "Blue Blood" and "Royal Blue". The origins of these two phrases can be found with certainty.

To define "Blue Blood" I'll refer you to: http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-blu1.htm which explains that the Moors who did not intermarry were lighter skinned and their veins appeared through their skin giving them the blue color. These were the proudest and most aristocratic families.

"Royal Blue" can be traced back to the earliest days of dying cloth where the blue color was the most difficult to get and the most costly. Therefore only royalty could aford "Royal Blue". I'll refer you to: http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:-gJkSMlUMmQJ:www.judaic.org/bible/shelah2.pdf+%22royal+blue%22+%2B+phrase+%2B+origin&hl=en&ie=UTF-8.

Finally, according to the Dictionary of Symbols :"Blue: Infinity, eternity, truth, devotion, faith, purity, chastity, peace, spiritual and intellectual life --associations that appear in many ancient cultures and a express a general feeling that blue, the colour of the sky, is the coolest, most detached and least 'material' of all hues." Therefore the color blue seems to have long been considered a "higher" color.

This may not hit your question head on, but I can reasonably assume that when the color scheme was made by those first chipmakers, blue would be the highest, where white (the most common) would be the lowest.

What do you think?

Nolan Altman R-6309