 First developed at Bell Laboratories in the 1950s and used in the 1960s in the NASA space program, solar panels had yet to find commercial applications.On a whim, John bought 100 of these novel 9-Watt panels for $600 apiece.He quickly sold them for $900 each to people interested in simple living in Mendocino County who also wanted to enjoy light fixtures, TV and a few of mainstream civilization's other creature comforts without doing business with utilities.