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Anyone else colour blind?

There seems to be a fad for designing 'stuff' with these fancy multicoloured LED that change their colour from red to green to indicate something important - like a status, error, or maybe even red and green amps! I have a GNX 3 and I really struggle with the amp warping indicator LED.

It's not only hardware that is effected by this but software as well.

It would be so much better to have two or three seperate LEDs. If they really, really have to use multicoloured LED, there are now some much better options that are less likely to cause problems for colour blind people - I've just had a look on an electronic components supplier's web site and they now do amber/blue, blue/orange/green, red/blue, yellow/blue.

Together with about 10% of other blokes, (and about 1% fems) I am red/green colour blind and I'm always having problems with these indicator lights - who's idea was it to make traffic lights red=stop and green=go and also red=port and green=starboard!

I cope with this affliction pretty well I think, (I was quite happily wiring up diagnostic systems for RAF's helicopters at one stage! - and none to my knowledge fell out of the sky because of me!) ... but it would be quite nice once in a while if manufacturers could bare us in mind when deciding their LED colours and layouts, so that our lives can be just that little bit easier!

Comments

  • Thanks for the informative post. I found an interview on Heaven and Earth's Stewart Smith ordeal over color blindness at Texas Instruments before his guitar career. http://www.hardrockhaven.net/hrhindepth/hrhfissmith.php

    A patent to help visual perception as \"Some sound engineers are colored blind\" under 2. Description of related art (about half way down the page). http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6728382.html

    Maybe you can mod your leds to a different color or array.
  • Hi, I'm afflicted too. Though I must admit it doesn't really affect my normal life too much apart from when I rewired the core warning system for the local nuclear reactor and maybe the time when I had to defuse some explosive devices, my how everyone panicked. But seriously, the biggest pain in the butt is when someone says \"WOW, check out the chick in the green top\" or something, you end up looking everywhere but at the chick in the green top! Also, it gets a bit tedious when other people find out and start asking \"hey, what colour is this/that/the next thing\". Not to forget the people who think colour blindness means viewing everything in black white and grey!
  • I work on elevators for a living...

    One of the most hilarious times I have had is wiring a 72 conductor, color coded electrical cable, with a color blind guy..

    I wired one end and my color bind buddy wired the other end..
    I'd call out stuff like \"Red, Blue......Terminal 20\" and he'd say Okay...

    What a mess at the end... :lol::lol::lol:
  • :? My bass playing friend Gregory P. is color blind too. 8)
    He records alot of things we write on his Korg 16 track. it has a red/ orange /green setup for arming tracks...I can't tell you how many times we have got a great take only to here ...sorry dude lets do that again the track was'nt armed...its very hard for him to tell the diffrence between the orange and red he says the red to green isnt that bad but orange to red :? he just asks us now to be sure as we got tierd of redoing takes...as this was cutting in on our drinking time :roll: :lol:
  • Is that the D1600? That's what I have... thank god for 99 levels of Undo.
  • I'm color blind

    I dont differentiate betwen Black or White.
  • \iliace\ wrote:
    Is that the D1600? That's what I have... thank god for 99 levels of Undo.
    Yup its a D16 the model right before they added the cd burner so its only got a 2 gig drive and you have to store your stuff off on a scsi. But other than that I really like it. Also when we use it at practise I don't have to be the recording engineer so I get to Drink more :lol:
  • I too am color blind
    I have trouble with the green /yellow led's and have lost many a tracks.
    my wife gets sick of me asking her the color.

    separate led's would be AWESOME!!!
  • Or a had switch with labeled positions.
  • Excellent response guys - thanks

    I too am asked about what colour blindness is like fairly frequently so if you're interested ...

    For those who aren't it's very difficult to imagine what it is like. For starters it's not that we see things devoid of colour, although there are some people who do only have black and white vision, this is a different problem (and much rarer) and is caused by a lack of 'cones' in their retina which are the colour sensing bits in our eyes.

    It is also NOT (like my cousin insisted when she was about 12 and knew everything) that we've learned the colours wrong!

    I often relay an expeience I had when I was younger:
    Me and my dad used to play cricket with a yellow tennis ball - no problem, but then when I got a bit bigger, we bought a proper red cricket ball. I could see that the grass was green, and the ball was red, but I just couldn't hit it. Colourblindness is that the perceved differences between the colours is not very great, and the red ball just didn't stand out from the green. Eventually I did hit it real good ... and that was the last I ever saw of it ... never found it ... gave up cricket!

    It's not only red/green, but some people have problems with other colours as well. I'm not particularly good with blues/violets/purples either.

    One suggestion I saw in another forum, is to cover red/green LEDs with a red filter, so that it only lets through the red light. When it goes green, it will appear unlit, or at least a dimmer. I can't say I've tried it but it sounds like it could save a few folks some hastles.
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