LED display History
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) came into existence in 1962 and were primarily red in color for the first decade. The first practical LED was invented by Nick Holonyak in 1962 while he was at General Electric.

The first practical LED display was developed at Hewlett-Packard (HP) and introduced in 1968. Its development was led by Howard C. Borden, Gerald P. Pighini, and Egyptian engineer Mohamed M. Atalla, at HP Associates and HP Labs, who had engaged in research and development (R&D) on practical LEDs between 1962 and 1968. In February 1969, they introduced the HP Model 5082-7000 Numeric Indicator.It was the first LED device to use integrated circuit (integrated LED circuit) technology, and the first intelligent LED display, making it a revolution in digital display technology, replacing the Nixie tube and becoming the basis for later LED displays.

Early models were monochromatic by design. The efficient Blue LED completing the color triad did not commercially arrive until the late 1980s.

In the late 1980s, Aluminium Indium Gallium Phosphide LEDs arrived. They provided an efficient source of red and amber and were used in information displays. However, it was still impossible to achieve full colour. The available "green" was hardly green at all – mostly yellow, and an early blue needed a power station to run it. It was only when Shuji Nakumura, then at Nichia Chemical, announced the development of the blue (and later green) LED based on Indium Gallium Nitride, that possibilities opened for big LED video displays.