From: Calvin (cgrier_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: Tue Feb 15 2005 - 19:19:51 PST
James,
Believe me, I'd love to have a white backlight with more brightness, but it's not in the cards today.
There's actually two ways to make white, and I chose the one that was brightest - even though it looks pink when turned off. The other approach looks white when on and white when off - but offers less light. White light is somewhat difficult ot generate because it's a combination of at least three other colors of light. One way to make white is to take the green (which gets energy from the A/C voltage), and add other color phosphors (which steal energy from the green photons that are bouncing about).
An EL backlight acts like a capacitor, and the phosphors are burried in the dialectric material. It's the E&M laws of physics that comes into play when trying to find a good, efficient phosphor - and green turns out to be best choice.
I don't understand the underlying physics of the materials, but it's fairly well understood by the chemists that make the green goop. :-) Unfortunately EL technology doesn't follow Moore's law. :-(
-----Original Message-----
From: James Wages <james_at_kiramek.com>
Sent: Feb 14, 2005 11:09 PM
To: newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
Subject: Re: [NTLK] High Quality replacement MP2x00 white backlights
Calvin, I appreciate your time in replying.
I fully understand that your choice of a white backlight helped to
differentiate your product offering from competing "green replacements."
But I am not looking at it from that aspect. I'm thinking about color
versus clarity. In my opinion, a white backlight is a better color choice
for the purpose of enhancing contrast on the LCD and thus improve visibility
overall (as compared with green).
So even though green EL technology has improved since Apple came out with
the Newt2100, what is the technical reason why WHITE cannot be made
brighter, or just as bright as the new brighter greens?
Your offer for a brighter-than-stock green is appealing, but I would be even
more interested in a brighter-than-stock WHITE EL.
Best,
James W.
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