WI: No/Slower Information Age

What if the Information Age didn't happen? What would need to happen for it to be plausible? Lets say the transistor was never invented, or after the 1950s or mid 60s, transistor improvements begin to stagnate.

What technologies and concepts would come along as OTL? What technologies and ideas would get more attention?
 

Insider

Banned
What if the Information Age didn't happen? What would need to happen for it to be plausible? Lets say the transistor was never invented, or after the 1950s or mid 60s, transistor improvements begin to stagnate.

What technologies and concepts would come along as OTL? What technologies and ideas would get more attention?

Interesting. I toyed with something similar when I considered story ideas. I think that an early death of one of the crucial physicists would be enough to prevent invention of transistors for years. (In my scenario I didn't have such trouble as I made point of change in ancient times). The electronics would still be there even then. You won't see the much changes until seventies. They would simply see limited use due to size, expenses, and power comsumption. Electromechanical and vaccum lamp based computing would continue to advance, but it would be hardly a revolutionary growth. Technology rather evolve slowly.

Interesting thing is that in such world once the transistor is invented and somebody uses it a computing medium, it would be SLOWER in its aplication then it was in OTL. The comparably later it would came, the greater ressistance it would be met with. First of all it is the sunk costs. It is easy to buy a few dozens of computers in the scale of the country (even if said computers have size of a house and costs as much as jet airliner). How about a hundred of them? Or thousands? I realise that electromechanical and vacum based compunting would be far less ubiquitus than transisor based, but companies, militaries, and universities would buy them over years.
Altrough such mediums are much slower then the transistors could get, they would get more and more refined over the years, and such advanced switches and lamps could be serious competition for first transistors.

Furthermore there would be much more research into what we would OTL call "exotic" mediums of computing. Optical, chemical or bio computers? Maybe even fluid-dynamic based? who knows!
 
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The transistor is going to be invented unless you unleash a plague on the physicists, the principles were well known from a number of devices by the late 40's.

And the development was driven initially for military needs, the same for the early IC. So you'd need to handwave an awful lot.

Its like radar in the 30's, you can mess around a lot but you cant stop it happening on a broadly similar time scale.
 

Insider

Banned
transistor is assured to be invented in 40'ties if we have knowledge we take for granted in fourties. We have to put a dent earlier. Since PODs as early as 1900 are available, it is still easily done.

Radar is actually an excelent idea what could go wrong. It was patented in 1919 yet working example developed only in 1937. Transistor could also be developed earlier. Had not the Bell Labs competitive atmosphere it could be omited easily.
 
The transistor is going to be invented unless you unleash a plague on the physicists, the principles were well known from a number of devices by the late 40's.

And the development was driven initially for military needs, the same for the early IC. So you'd need to handwave an awful lot.

Its like radar in the 30's, you can mess around a lot but you cant stop it happening on a broadly similar time scale.

Yeah. To be honest I wasn't sure if I should've put this in the ASB section. I was thinking about how a timeline that resembles a retrofuture could happen, and I figured the best way to do that if certain technologies just didn't come to pass. A world that didn't experience the Information Age like we did wouldn't have the same present and certainly not the same future as we would.
 

Insider

Banned
Yeah. To be honest I wasn't sure if I should've put this in the ASB section. I was thinking about how a timeline that resembles a retrofuture could happen, and I figured the best way to do that if certain technologies just didn't come to pass. A world that didn't experience the Information Age like we did wouldn't have the same present and certainly not the same future as we would.

The Definition of ASB is blurry and varies from person to person. Some would define it as direct intervention of supernatural forces. Others cry"ASB!" when seeing a merely improbable result. To the point when they see any military victory that isn't just a bloody grind, but has a bit of finesse in it, such as Falais or battle of France as an ASB.

Let's say we have to postpone invention of transistor for a dozen months. Non-lethal infection like flu could do the trick. John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain worked in the same office, probably long hours. If one catches the bug he could easily infect others. Time it right and the whole project would be shelved, because the would do something else while catching up after sick leave. Of course another team, (in another lab?) could come up with something similar.

To remove it further out, one has to delay scientific underlay describing the effect. Julius Edgar Lilienfeld who patented first transistor in twenties could be killed in political turmoil before leaving for USA. That would give us a few years before somebody do the same research, and somebody with enough practical skills builds a working example and markets it.

To make POD further out, we have to remove Max Planck. He was Lilienfield's mentor, and lied foundations of his work. Let’s say that he contracted tuberculosis instead of his first wife, passing away in first decade of twentieth century. Tuberculosis wasn't called wasting disease without reason. With it Planck would have either a much shorter, or much more unproductive life. His removal would make TTL physics somewhat unrecognisable. Other people would discover various phenomena and name them differently. You may not have atomic bomb in 1945.
 
The Definition of ASB is blurry and varies from person to person. Some would define it as direct intervention of supernatural forces. Others cry"ASB!" when seeing a merely improbable result. To the point when they see any military victory that isn't just a bloody grind, but has a bit of finesse in it, such as Falais or battle of France as an ASB.

Let's say we have to postpone invention of transistor for a dozen months. Non-lethal infection like flu could do the trick. John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain worked in the same office, probably long hours. If one catches the bug he could easily infect others. Time it right and the whole project would be shelved, because the would do something else while catching up after sick leave. Of course another team, (in another lab?) could come up with something similar.

To remove it further out, one has to delay scientific underlay describing the effect. Julius Edgar Lilienfeld who patented first transistor in twenties could be killed in political turmoil before leaving for USA. That would give us a few years before somebody do the same research, and somebody with enough practical skills builds a working example and markets it.

To make POD further out, we have to remove Max Planck. He was Lilienfield's mentor, and lied foundations of his work. Let’s say that he contracted tuberculosis instead of his first wife, passing away in first decade of twentieth century. Tuberculosis wasn't called wasting disease without reason. With it Planck would have either a much shorter, or much more unproductive life. His removal would make TTL physics somewhat unrecognisable. Other people would discover various phenomena and name them differently. You may not have atomic bomb in 1945.

If the transistors invention in the early 20th century was inevitable without really screwing up science, what if the POD was merely in the 40s and 50s?

Lets say the transistor gets invented. How would you prevent the 1970s-2010s from having the same advanced electronics and computers that kept getting smaller and faster every year?
 
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