Comment on Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED

rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

My favorite thing about widely-available blue LEDs was the effect on TV scifi.

Watch the Star Trek shows made in the 1980s and 1990s and the tricorders, alien gadgets, and other props were always twinkling with red, yellow, and green LEDs to look futuristic. A generation later and every single hand prop on 2000s Doctor Who, Torchwood, etc. glowed and twinkled blue because the LEDs had just become cheap enough for prop makers, but weren’t yet widespread enough in day-to-day life so that the viewers were seeing something strange and unusual.

One bit of tech turns up and suddenly glowy blue became the standard “scifi” color.

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