The only cosmetic difference between an RLV disc and a regular factory-pressed LaserDiscs is their reflective purple-violet (or blue with some RLV discs) color resulting from the dye embedded in the reflective layer of the disc to make it recordable, as opposed to the silver mirror appearance of regular LDs. The purplish color of RLVs is very similar to DVD-R and DVD+R discs. RLVs were popular for making short-run quantities of LaserDiscs for specialized applications such as interactive kiosks and flight simulators.
If it is possible to answer this question, answer it for me (else, reply "unanswerable"): For what purpose were RLVs popular?
making short-run quantities of LaserDiscs for specialized applications such as interactive kiosks and flight simulators