While looking at Japan’s HID lighting portfolio, I have noticed that they definitely have an amazingly large selection of mercury vapor retrofit lamps that encompass nearly every HID lighting technology ranging from high pressure sodium, white high CRI high pressure sodium, quartz metal halide, and even ceramic metal halide! Additionally, multiple manufacturers such as National/Panasonic, NEC, Mitsubishi, Iwasaki, and Toshiba made these lamps!! The amazingly large selection of mercury vapor retrofit lamps that Japan offers makes it tempting for me to import them for my own collection. Why was there a need for Japan to design a self-starting mercury vapor retrofit lamp for nearly every HID lamp technology and why did most other countries largely develop dedicated ballasts different from mercury vapor ballasts and external ignitors for the other HID lamp technologies instead of self-starting mercury vapor retrofit lamps like Japan did?
Here is a video that clearly shows the wide variety of mercury vapor retrofit lamps available in Japan if you want to see what the lamps look like warming up:
https://youtu.be/rAfEUeZFNUI?si=sjJJysqTAwcFarUCIn the video, you can see a mercury vapor lamp, a high pressure sodium retrofit lamp, a quartz metal halide retrofit lamp, and a ceramic metal halide retrofit lamp all being used on the same mercury vapor ballast.