I remember when CFLs came out, this was in the early 80s. I saw a Philips (I think it was a Norelco at the time) SL*18 lamp with an electronic ballast lit on display at a lighting store. I thought it looked pretty weird compared to the incandescents that were in use in every household. CFLs were rare here in the USA in the early 80s, but were fairly common in commercial applications by the late 80s.

A EOL Philips SL*18 was also for me the very first cfl. It had also the broun plastic cover. I was excited to see the this lamp blinking.
Generally the most lamps in my collection at this time were EOL, because I allways found them in intended lamp recycling bins.
The date code on this lamp is usually stamped on the end of the base.

The datecode is very hard to read (the holes to fix the base to the plastic base cover parts of the code) - it looks like "AF4". As I have a nice collection of additional Philips SL*'s it would be interessting to understand the datecode for the image-gallery I plan to add here. By the way this is a very COOL page. I am glad I've discovered it.

Sounds like yours dates to about '84 if the "4" is certainly a 4.

No kidding. This place is fantastic! Glad you liked it. Welcome to LG. The datecode stamp are still being stamped in modern philips CFLs. The two I have have the stamp.

So this lamp still lights, but just takes a long while to start?

It is continously trying to start. The tube lights up in a red color tone(less mercury?) and starts to get bright at the electrodes. The brightness moves along till nearly the whole tube is bright. That is the time when its abled to strike and it stays on like a normal working SL. Of course this behaviour was not usefull and it was replaced by a new SL (with white base). I kept it because it was my first one and it is funny to watch it fighting to start.

So probably the starter went bad, it happens sometime when the lamp was switched very frequently.

Anyway welcome to LG.

Thanx for the welcome .
Ok, it definetly was switched very frequently. My brother and I didn't care about such things as kids and we both liked the blinking start-up of it. One advantage of that lamp was also the fact, that the fixture was only rated to max 60 watts and so we had more light output.

kind regards

There are now two Philips SL* lamps in my stock. One SL* 18W which is well used and a NOS SL*13W, both with white bases. There is also a NOS Osram Compacta 9W from the early nieties, quite cute for such a small lamp.

I've got some Philips SL*13 from the early nienties which should be the same as your Osram Compacta. It is interesseting to see the difference in size an weight compared to the first version. My first images i plan to upload will be the three versions of the SL* series. They are my favorites

I got also three generations of the SL* lamp. The oldest are the ones as mentioned above, then the 1994 slimmer version ( SL* Comfort 13W ) and finally the latest ones from 2003 with electronic ballast.
I believe that the Osram Compacta is a Philips made lamp, but sold under the OSRAM licence.

Back in the early to mid 1990s my parents got me a compact fluorescent lamp for my bedroom. I can't remember what wattage it was, possibly 18w, but it took a long time to warm up. It was big, bulky and very heavy, particularly the base, and the fluorescent tubes were enclosed within what seemed to be a glass opalescent diffused enclosure. The lamp did not burn to extinction, and instead my parents replaced it with a 100w GLS lamp because they thought the light output was bad for my eyes or something. For a couple of years it sat unused in a box, but I haven't seen it for about a decade. May have been thrown away, or may be hidden somewhere in the garage. I have a relative who has one just the same though, so I might sneakily swap his one with a modern compact fluorescent lamp.