Of course -- and all of that has lead to the display technologies we take for granted these days and a number of other advances (low cost, low energy, high output LED lighting, for example).
This is an example of the reaction to any new technology -- electric cars catch fire and we suddenly forget we drive around in vehicles carrying large quantities of explosive gas (and work via controlled explosions). They get stuck in the winter and we forget the few times a winter we had to jump our gas car to get somewhere. I remember actual indicator lamps ... granted, they tended to serve very temporary lighting purposes and despite that were still often burned out (if your elevator in the 80s had floor indicator lamps, 25% or more were dead).
When it's good new technology, as the blue LED objectively is, it becomes mass produced and then mass adopted as "the cool new thing." And it was the cool new thing -- I remember thinking how neat the deep blue LED on my first AV receiver was. And then it becomes over-adopted. Most of the LEDs I have covered up in my bedroom aren't blue -- they're cool white[0] and oh so much brighter than the various-shades-of-blue ones that adorn other equipment throughout my electronics stuffed house.
[0] If they were warm white, but dim, I'd probably have a similar "that's neat" if they looked like earlier indicator lamps (but cleaner).
mdip|2 years ago
This is an example of the reaction to any new technology -- electric cars catch fire and we suddenly forget we drive around in vehicles carrying large quantities of explosive gas (and work via controlled explosions). They get stuck in the winter and we forget the few times a winter we had to jump our gas car to get somewhere. I remember actual indicator lamps ... granted, they tended to serve very temporary lighting purposes and despite that were still often burned out (if your elevator in the 80s had floor indicator lamps, 25% or more were dead).
When it's good new technology, as the blue LED objectively is, it becomes mass produced and then mass adopted as "the cool new thing." And it was the cool new thing -- I remember thinking how neat the deep blue LED on my first AV receiver was. And then it becomes over-adopted. Most of the LEDs I have covered up in my bedroom aren't blue -- they're cool white[0] and oh so much brighter than the various-shades-of-blue ones that adorn other equipment throughout my electronics stuffed house.
[0] If they were warm white, but dim, I'd probably have a similar "that's neat" if they looked like earlier indicator lamps (but cleaner).