Although not really instant start. See here: https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=537&pos=7&pid=250575

@suzukir122 yes, almost all the 9w and 11w PL-S lamps had both a glow bottle and a capacitor in parallel.
I tried using Philips and Osram PL-S 9W lamps (I don't know if they have capacitors or not) and both had the same result, flashing before turning on. I also tried an Osram 10w & 13w PL-C, and both flashed before firing up.
I also tried using a cheap PL-S 9W lamp without a glowbottle starter, just a capacitor. That lamp instantly fired up on the ballast, no flashing.
The eol lamp was flashing and I could hear a starter 'ping' sound every time it flashed. The ballast turns off after 10 seconds so it knows that the lamp is eol.

Also, is it the same reason that almost all starters for magnetic ballasts have a film capacitor (usually silver colored) in parallel with the glow bottle?

It is known literally for centuries (from the time of first Ruhmkorff coils in 1800's) that self-induction circuits containing a coil and a switch generally work better when some small capacitance added across the switch. Limiting a voltage rise speed by a capacitor reduces sparking at the contacts and makes more energy transferring to the useful load. This is also *one* of the reasons why a capacitor is always added across car ignition distributor primary contacts.

Also, a small capacitor across the tube somewhat reduces RF interference generated by the tube in lower frequency bands.

So far I have not met any integrated starter CFL lacking a capacitor, though pretty anything is possible with lesser Asian knock-offs.

Then how about running a low resolution like the 30 lines of Baird's mechanical televisor? That could scan slowly enough to have the beam be seen, remember that 30 non-interlaced was chosen as a compromise between detail and flicker on the rather slow mechanical system/

Why do people vape anyway? The only thing it's got going for it is it's a bit less of a fire hazard than smoking.

@James
My bad, I misunderstood. That makes sense. I wonder why borate glass specifically had to use platinum furnaces, everything about this just seems like suck a pain in the butt for the manufacturers, I suppose that is why they weren't "perfected" for a long time.

I am pretty sure the hardglass arc tubes were still 2-ply, for cost reasons.  I think C42 together with plain ordinary C9 borosilicate (modern name B37) or a slight variant.  I have all the old BTH-Mazda sodium lamp manufacturing specs, will look it up later.  Also the raw glass chemical compositions and properties.  It was of course higher borate content than regular borosilicate, but mainly because the silica was substantially removed.

The borate glasses were always extremely expensive.  Not so much for their materials, but because I remember the entire sidewalls of the furnace tanks were made from solid platinum, rather than the usual cheap ceramic walls.  Of course these days that would be monstrously expensive, but years ago it was just about tolerable.

This is news to me! I am gonna look around here for an example for sure, I would love to see that.

@James
Right cracking is definitely not a good thing, makes sense that you would want to avoid that lol.

Wow, I definitely am familiar with the fact that borate glass is hard to work with, but I had no idea it was so hard that it was impossible to draw into tubing for a while. That stuff must really suck.

So from what I am hearing it doesn't really matter what ceramic you use, as long as it has good thermal mass. Good to know.

I had no idea that the hard glass arc tubes were single ply! that must make them so much easier to make, though I suppose more expensive. Is C42 glass just a higher borate content version of plain borosilicate?

Thanks for your detailed response!

That would be very interesting!  To measure the lumens would first require ageing for about 1 week, and even then no two lamps are ever the same or usually aligned with the nominal spec value.  But we could see if s different spectrum is present.  I will have to keep an eye open for these on the Japanese websites.