The Skyliner in China

The greatest request for the Skyliner was when we received an email from Shanghai. We couldn't believe that someone in China wanted to purchase the Skyliner for resale. We were new to this business and feared we would be ripped off by the Chinese who could copy our item overnight. We had patents, but how do you protect yourself internationally? 

Looking back we should have had our paranoia in check and gone through with opportunity knocking. The big deal for us were the bragging rights to say, "Hey, even China wants to purchase our product." 


Soon after the China request we learned that Japanese traffic police used a stick like product that housed "persistence of vision technology." It had numerous LED's along the side of the "wand like device" that lit up with the words Stop and Go, in Japanese, of course. The traffic controller used this as his tool to control the bicycles, and CARS. Yeah, it was that long ago.

I actually bought the first one sold in the USA around the late 1970's. I was amazed by it, but it took a while to be able to read the message. The brain had to be conditioned as to what to look for. I'd wave it back an forth and ask folks if they could see the message, encouraging them to "look harder", then tell them what to look for. Eventually they would give in and say, "oh, yeah, I get it, I can see the words". They couldn't for the most part, all they could make out were some characters if the wand was moved back and forth at the exact speed. Our Skyliner, by Versatile Visions, llc., a Maine company, changed all that. By putting it in a "circular configuration" and spinning it slowly and evenly, the words were easy to discern and simple to program. Eventually we sold some units to a Japanese company. More on that later.



That's all for now.