35 years old? That thing must have been belt driven.

The oldest ones I saw were 1990-ish and from panasonic, with a huge
magnetic ballast. It was large, stupid and didn't fit in most fixtures. I
can't recall what the life was, but it was put together well with lots of
glass and silicone goop. There's no way in hell it was cheaper than a box
of incandescent bulbs, especially when you factor in the part where
electricity itself isn't really that expensive in the US.



When we owned a day nursery, it was located in a Victorian school building
that we bought. It was back in the early 80s. When we bought the place, it
had all old pendant fixtures in the rooms - probably something like 12 in
each room, so you can imagine what the electricity bill would have been
like. I replaced them all with some CFLs called "Dulux EL Globes". I would
guess that each was about 4 - 5" diameter and was completely translucent.
They took a while to warm up to full brightness, but the light output from
them was excellent, and of a very pleasant colour. They ran 5 days a week
from 7:30 in the morning until gone 6pm, and the failure rate was very very
low. They weren't cheap, mind ...

Arfa