[rescue] VRE01/VT1200 pictures

[James Lockwood]

On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Leslie Connally wrote:

> I never understood what the fuss was about with blue LED.. It just wasnt
> something I had any interest in. But I travel liquidation surplus circles,
> and several years ago, a buddy was _OH SO_ excited. he had bought .. i
> dunno 50,000 LEDs new surplus.. and I dont remember 10-20% turned out to be
> blue ones..
>
> He was very very OH SO excited..

I'm not surprised.  Even just a few years ago blue LEDs were nearly 2
orders of magnitude more expensive than comparable red or green ones.
5000 of them are worth a nice chunk of change if you can hook up a buyer.

I just remember it being an unattainable color for a long time.  We had R
and G aplenty, but no B (and therefore no arbitrary colored solid state
light sources).  When they first came out they were visually striking even
through they were dim.

Similar example: cheap vanadate DPSS crystals pumped with laser diodes
finally allowed (relatively) cheap compact low-maint lasers smack in the
middle of the visual range.  Quite striking, even in the milliwatt range.

-James