WI/Worldbuilding: Transistor Tech Delayed

[QueenofScots]

Making an RPG setting for d20 Modern/Future. So as stated above, transistors are sucsessfully invented later than OTL, about 1970. This is turn means that integrated circuits are first made in the time around 1980. Why? In story, to justify why there is such a presence in space, due to communications and spy satellites needing to be manned. Now, I feel that a 20 year delay in tech starts to push this into ASB territory, but it makes for interesting situation. The game is set in 2003, but the technology is that of OTL 1980. What would you expect this world to be like?

 

[Zelda]

Interesting.

 

[QueenofScots]

-Live music from the 70s through 90s features less synths than studio music, due to the tempermental nature of early synths.

-No Internet, obviously, but rudimentary chat rooms and the like exist, often coded in to a work computer.

-A lucrative cargo of spaceships is entertainment. Magazines, video and audio cassetes, records, and of course, porno, are all welcomed in places far away from radio satellites.

 

[Minchandre]

Radars, but not nearly as small and sophisticated. No guided weapons. I'm not sure about comms satellites; I think yes, but very primitive. No computer networks, though of course computers themselves get suck as enormous niche devices far less powerful than OTL anyway. Aircraft are probably much less efficient and maneuverable because there will be no fly-by-wire and much fewer simulations of their shapes. And that's just in about 2 minutes of thinking...

 

[QueenofScots]

The introduction of unmanned comms satellites could have a "Ghost Town" effect on manned space stations. Discovering a depressurized, dark, and delapidated station seems interesting for a random encounter.