Corned Beef Renegade
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What if cell phones in 2014 were still a luxury item for the rich and people in certain jobs with the majority of people still using pay phones?
What if cell phones in 2014 were still a luxury item for the rich and people in certain jobs with the majority of people still using pay phones?
Somewhat difficult, you would need a POD that butterflies affordable electronics and microprocessors, but yet still keeps them extant enough that it is deemed economical to make portable telecommunications devices with them. Even if those devices are very pricey.
Perhaps some even that stagnates technological progress at an early to mid 1980s level.
I'm not sure exactly where the best place to start for this is.
In that case TTL would butterfly out widespread internet usage as well.
Somewhat difficult, you would need a POD that butterflies affordable electronics and microprocessors, but yet still keeps them extant enough that it is deemed economical to make portable telecommunications devices with them. Even if those devices are very pricey.
Perhaps some even that stagnates technological progress at an early to mid 1980s level.
I'm not sure exactly where the best place to start for this is.
What if cell phones in 2014 were still a luxury item for the rich and people in certain jobs with the majority of people still using pay phones?
How on earth do you do that?You can freeze cell phone technology to mid-nineties levels and they still remain relative luxuries, with spotty coverage, no digital phones, etc. They do not become substitutes for landlines until after 2000.
Damm I remember those days -1984. Sending text messages on a green or red screen from Okinawa to the US on a computer at the battalion adjutants office. & a friend bragging about riding somewhere in Chicago in a Limo. with a car phone. I think it was owned by a stockbroker.
Four years later in 1988 I was discussing the pros and cons of getting a 'modem card' for my Apple IIe to send messages on the "internet". Decided to forgo that and upgrade to a Mac+. That could support a affordable drafting program. Meanwhile we started seeing folks carrying big brick cellular phones around the big city. Four years later we were being told anyone not able to communicate electronically with email had better think about their contribution to the organization. Meanwhile my peers on the construction sites were unable to escape the phone on their belt of briefcase & anoyed the rest of us with their constant interruption to answer their phone.
not really, no. NiCads already existed, and they would suffice. Oh, sure your cell phone would be twice the size, and smartphones would be harder, larger and more expensive. But staying with NiCads (or better NiMH, which was likely in the wings already, even if not on the market) is NOT going to do anything like what the OP asks for.One thing that no-one's mentioned yet is battery technology, if we can somehow sabotage battery tech, then cellphones become expensive and short-lived, without effecting most of the rest of the industry.
One thing that no-one's mentioned yet is battery technology, if we can somehow sabotage battery tech, then cellphones become expensive and short-lived, without effecting most of the rest of the industry.
Larger, more expensive and shorter battery life would put people off I'm sure, which I'd call much more likely to succeed than any attempt to slow down digital development.not really, no. NiCads already existed, and they would suffice. Oh, sure your cell phone would be twice the size, and smartphones would be harder, larger and more expensive. But staying with NiCads (or better NiMH, which was likely in the wings already, even if not on the market) is NOT going to do anything like what the OP asks for.
In that case TTL would butterfly out widespread internet usage as well.
Slow down? certainly. But that's NOT what the OP asked for. The phrasing was "luxury item for rich people", a very much more restrictive challenge.Larger, more expensive and shorter battery life would put people off I'm sure, which I'd call much more likely to succeed than any attempt to slow down digital development.
Yes, but at no point in time can we be sure what the next five years will bring. The computers of any given day are always better than those of just a few years in the past. From 1989 to 2003, you had a literal Moore's Law doubling of capacities and processor speeds every two years. During that time, cell phones became universal. Since then, the progress has not been as rapid. Computers reached the 1.4 GHz processing speed around 2003. Since then, they have doubled but not quadrupled, the criteria to make old units obsolete. Now, suppose at some time in the early nineties, processor technology hits a limit. The first Pentium chips, the first PowerPC chips were impressive in their day. There was no assurance at any given time that processor speeds would continue to double every two years for as long as they did. A freeze at 1994 would still allow a slow World Wide Web, but cell phones might not compete with land lines.How on earth do you do that?
Cell phones use the same chip technology that computers do - smart phones ARE computers - and to freeze cell phone tech would be to freeze computer tech.
Good luck with THAT!
Slow down? certainly. But that's NOT what the OP asked for. The phrasing was "luxury item for rich people", a very much more restrictive challenge.