PET 2001 phosphor - blue or white?

From: Anders Carlsson <anders.carlsson_at_sfks.se>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 19:03:20 +0200
Message-ID: <01e75135-97d0-e68f-de26-5eaaf83662c8@sfks.se>
Hello,

Every now and then, there is a discussion about how come so few computer 
monitors in the earlier generations had a blue display. The green and 
later on amber monochrome monitors were very common, before the 
introduction of colour displays.

White on black also seems to have been quite common, which leads me to 
my question:

On Wikipedia, as well as the PET FAQ maintained by Larry Andersson, it 
is said that the first line of PET 2001 had a blue on black display. I 
always thought that was white on black, but if you bring down the 
brightness and have less lighting around the computer, it will glow and 
look light blue.

It is said that many reviews and publications back in the day referred 
to the display as blue on black, and that if you increase the 
brightness, you get a display so bright that text will look white 
instead of blue.

I seem to recall though that VICE defaults to green, with optional 
palettes for amber and white, never blue.

What does the monitor itself look like, can one based on which 
phosphorous used determine which hue it is supposed to be? If it just 
was Wikipedia + hundreds of pages quoting it that had got it wrong, I 
wouldn't mind but if one of our own FAQ's contain information that could 
be questioned, it makes me curious.

Best regards

Anders Carlsson



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