[Steely Tom]

When I worked at a GE Lighting Systems Division plant in the late '70s, one of the long-termers told me there was a guy at CR&D that had been trying to develop a marketable CFL for 25 years.

Big problem at that time was the power supply. Power electronics wasn't cheap enough (or efficient enough) to make the miniature switching power supply that was required.

If the person who told me this was right (and I'm sure he knew what he was talking about), GE has been working on CFL since 1955 if not earlier.

[PIF]

Agree. They were totally unmarketable at the time and remained so until recently because some one payed of someone or became one of 0bama’sadvisors - something like that - was no demand until the pressure was put on Congress. Anyway there was a scandal which the MSN barely reported, but we got stuck them so GE could make money off of something no one wanted ... like 0bamacre.