That's probably older than some of you on this forum. ;D
Back in the 80's hene pointers were available, they were big, had short run times and very fragile. The diode replacement was welcome in the fact that it ran much longer and was very rugged. Of course <1mW at 670nm to human eyes is very DIM in comparison to a hene. I remember paying $400 for a <1mW 2xAA 670nm pointer from a company called Imatronic in Batavia, IL, back in 1989. Edmund's sold them. Having a self contained diode laser pointer slightly smaller than a mini mag was VERY cool nearly 20 years ago! Didn't last long though. I cranked up the current (it had an NEC 5mW gain guided diode) until it finally bit the dust. I replaced the diode with a Toshiba TOLD9201 and later a 9211. I was hooked on visible semiconductor lasers from then on. The collimator was a simple acrylic aspheric that provided a good circular beam with <1mR divergence but was discarding lots of power. A single element GRIN lens was far more efficient however the beam was elliptical and exhibited lots of aberrations. I finally found someone in Rochester NY that supplied me with four element glass collimators that circularized the beam and provided excellent beam quality with less loss than the single aspheric element.
