Why did all old consoles use Red LED power lights?

[tjstogy]

Mostly everything in the 80's through the 90's used the color red for LED's- alarm clocks, appliances, ...and video game consoles. I am just wondering, why? Was this simply due to cost? Were other LED's really that much more expensive? Almost nothing any more uses red LED's, so wtf?

[Xyga]

Some MD2's had a green one.

[kamiboy]

I reckon it is for the same reason that they all use blue today.

[austin532]

I believe red was cheaper to make.

[bobrocks95]

Red LEDs were indeed the cheapest to make. I also think they were developed before the other colors.

[tacoboy42]

the bright blue LEDs we have today weren't developed until 94, and not widely available until the late 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emi ... e#Blue_LED

[Guspaz]

Commercial blue LEDs simply didn't exist. Green LEDs cost more and weren't nearly as bright.

[Ikaruga11]

Can't you just put in a light and a clear thing of plastic in the color you want?

[Xyga]

Can't you just put in a light and a clear thing of plastic in the color you want?

Blasphemy! You're demoted to ColoneLight.

[Guspaz]

A filter can only block light, it can't produce it. If you put a green filter in front of a red LED, you will get no light at all.

[austin532]

I think he meant putting a green/blue plastic over a white LED to get that color.

[tjstogy]

Interesting stuff-- the console that got me thinking of this was the American SNES- all white and purple with a Red LED? Doesn't seem to fit. Looks much better a purple LED, IMO. The NES and Genesis both have red in their console colors, so it fits. It makes me wonder if Nintendo would've used different color LED's if the cost was equal. Like, the N64 logo is primarily green- green LED would fit. The Gamecube was purple- purple LED would fit. Etc...

[Guspaz]

Commercial white LEDs didn't exist either. Early white LEDs were blue LEDs that used the blue light to excite a phosphor, which gave off yellow light, and the combination of blue and yellow looks white. Those early white lights weren't really broad spectrum either, so they wouldn't work all that well with filters either.

[bigbadboaz]

Yeah, does anyone else remember the repeated written orgasms some IGN writer had over the blue LED at the release of PS2? Having been there at the time, it was burned into my brain that the existence of blue LEDs was a new and very special thing..

[tjstogy]

I don't, but I believe it. It was a new thing. I always thought Blue LEDs looked gaudy...

Yeah, does anyone else remember the repeated written orgasms some IGN writer had over the blue LED at the release of PS2? Having been there at the time, it was burned into my brain that the existence of blue LEDs was a new and very special thing..

[Sumez]

I never really paid attention to it. I didn't realise it was a special thing when PS2 has the green and blue lights.

[austin532]

It was, when you turned on the system you were presented with not one but two different colored LED's. It was truly the system of the future.

[tjstogy]

So are all these little led lights equal in price now?

[bigbadboaz]

Probably not the same, but all within reach for mass-market products.

[mvsfan]

Its because only Green and red leds existed at the time.

most of the other colors were invented by a guy in the mid 90s and werent really available until the 2000s.

[BIL]

Fascinating thread! I didn't know LED colour tech was so involved. I thought it was like Christmas lights or something lmao.

[Slash]

See tacoboy42's Wikipedia link. Other colours literally did not exist or were not viable until relatively recently. People won the Nobel Prize for developing the blue LED, which then allowed for white LEDs, which in turn allow civilization to drastically reduce the energy needed for lighting (that currently accounts for ~20% of all power usage world wide).

[tjstogy]

It makes sense now..... they couldn't use the colored christmas light style because those would eventually burn out. LED's last like forever, and all they had was Red. Time to switch my SNES light to purple

[Ikaruga11]

How is it hard to make LEDs a different color? I don't understand how different hues offer more energy savings.

[tjstogy]

It's not the hue it's the technology. Led vs filament

[Unseen]

How is it hard to make LEDs a different color? I don't understand how different hues offer more energy savings.

Different combinations of materials (and different methods used to process them) generate specific colors. To make cheap, long-lasting LEDs of various colors, first the right combination of materials as well as methods for processing them on an industrial scale had to be found and developed. The first "look, we made a <color> LED" lab prototypes tend to be not very bright, power-inefficient and short-lived.

The efficiency of electricity-to-light conversion also depends on the material combination - for example the first commercially viable blue LEDs used a Silicon and Carbon-based chip, but while that combination results in a blue light, it has really low efficiency (Wikipedia mentions 0.03%). For comparison, the current crop of blue LEDs instead uses a Gallium-Nitride material and seems to reach around 35% efficiency.

[Xyga]

And then one day when humanity has mastered LEDs we'll all get a Sony CLEDIS at home.