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Vintage Laser

R

RapidRobert

New Member
I found this site while looking for information about my old HK 430, but thought I'd share a picture of a vintage laser I have in my collection of lasers from the Kennedy years. It's a completely original and fully operational 1962 Hughes Aircraft Company Model 200 pulsed ruby laser, made by the company that made the very first laser two years earlier. I believe this to be the world's oldest commercial and/or operational laser.

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I realize this is off topic here, but lasers are only recently becomming consumer products themselves and there are few, if any, other laser collectors out there. I thought y'all might appreciate it!
 
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Quite interesting! Might want to be careful with that, lasers can do some damage given a high enough power level. What was it used for?
 
I'm a holographer and laser tech since '80, and haven't caught a beam in the eye yet!:banana:

This laser was originally used new by Texas Instruments for resistor trimming on ICs. It's made by the same design as the very first one, so isn't very usefull. I've measured 1.5 Joules output, it can poke a hole in a razor blade, and have made a holographic grating with it.
 
Yep, I work with laser too. Fun stuff, isn't it? :D That's a pretty serious laser you have there. Going on 50, and it still works. Texas Instruments made some good stuff. :yes:
 
Yes, and it predates anything made to measure the beam's energy! If it went through a razor blade, the laser was "small". A dime and it was "medium", and a "big" one went through a quarter (according to Don Broadbent who worked at Trion Instruments in '61). The top flips up like the hood of a car, and there's three scissor switches underneath to adjust the range of the output pulse. Otherwise, the cabinet is essentially full of electrolytic capacitors.

The first gas lasers were RF excited (stretching to be on topic here) helium-neon. They had antenna wires running along side the plasma tube.
 
I had laser eye teatment in 1988: the 'laser' was the size of a supermarket chest freezer, in a special department of a hospital.
Now the opthalmologist has it on his desk in his consulting room - it's about the size of a small oscilloscope!
 
I just looked at a few lasers a kid on craigslist had. He popped a balloon with one and cut a slice of electrical tape with another.:D
 
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