4 ms·

It was invented but protected by patents, so it wasn't until those patents expired that companies and hobbyists started to experiment. Early 3D printers hadn't

It was invented but protected by patents, so it wasn't until those patents expired that companies and hobbyists started to experiment. Early 3D printers hadn't figured out things like layer adhesion yet so parts tended to be too weak to be very useful. It wasn't clear that this was an area for improvement rather than a fundamental downside of the technology.

WillPostForFood 2y ago
Yes! The fused deposition modeling (additive printing) patents expired in 2009, which triggered the wave of innovation and home 3d printing. https://futurism.com/expiring-patents-set-to-improve-3d-world https://futurism.com/expiring-patents-set-to-improve-3d-worl...
jerf 2y ago
It's also easy to underestimate how much computation is involved and how little there was in the 70s. The 3D printer slicers generally require several seconds on modern hardware to calculate their final path. The resulting files are in the several megabytes. My Bambu 3D printer is all but festooned with sensors and is constantly adjusting things, but even the simple ones have more to their firmware than meets the eye. Even assuming that they'd use some simpler algorithms and data structures, you're looking at vast computation times, and most likely, vastly simpler objects being printed. Even something that seems as simple as "sous vide" cooking, which is basically a heater hooked to a thermocouple, took a lot of little innovations to make practical to hand to the masses. And then, there's the general improvement in motors speed, precision, and cost, along with any number of advancements here and there and everywhere to make it practical. Could someone thrust back to the 1970s and given a fairly substantial budget make some kind of 3D printer? Probably. But it's slow, extremely expensive, and can print various sizes of plastic bricks and spheres and other very algorithmically simple objects, and in rather low quality without many, many years further development. I can think of many ways of bodging on various improvements, but they're all going to have their own compromises, not be garden paths to what we now think of as modern 3D printing. (For example, someone could bodge together a machine that offsets a rod on the printer head, and then in the offset space, has an object to be "copied", by basically banging into the object with a very crude sensor, so there's no generation of geometry at all. But this is going to be clumsy, inaccurate, and full of very complex and disheartening limitations.) You're not going to be printing Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's face embedded into a toilet [1] or anything, at 1MB of geometry. It will be commercially useless and inaccessible to hobbyists. [1]: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6436138/files https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6436138/files
- etrautmann 2y ago
  Also 3D modeling software and hardware to run it.
- silvestrov 2y ago
  AirFryers are even simpler than "sous vide cooking". No reason they couldn't have been invented in the 50s - 60s when kitchens had good electrical supply.
  - creaturemachine 2y ago
    Air fryers are just convection ovens packaged differently.
    - jdietrich 2y ago
      Sort of, but not really. Air fryers have a much faster rate of airflow than any convection oven, which results in significantly faster and more even cooking. The air fryer really is a meaningful technological development.
      - knowitnone 2y ago
        if you consider adding a fan as "meaningful technological development"
        ozim 2y ago
        Well it is. We had electrical ovens without fan that were great. We had electrical ovens with a fan that were great. Air fryer has much more advanced fan with much more power than earlier. For me this is how meaningful technological progress happens. It is not like someone one day wakes up and suddenly has rocket that reached space caught back on landing by mechanical arms.
        ProllyInfamous 2y ago
        I just purchased my first air fryer summer 2023 — it has changed my cooking life, allowing me to rarely ever "eat out" without much meal prep. "Just adding a fan" is actually an extremely meaningful tech development.
fxtentacle 2y ago
That's also my understanding. The 3D printing boom started when the patents expired.
- scotty79 2y ago
  Wonderful illustration of how terrible patents are for technological developments of humanity and for consumers in general.
  - fxtentacle 2y ago
    You're not wrong. But at the same time, I feel like a patent is roughly the only thing that could stop a wealthy international corporation from just copying my new product and then out-competing me with their generous marketing budget. If the expected payout is large enough, a patent will then also help me find a law firm who's willing to work purely on commission, meaning it causes one of those rare instances where I might be able to meet an international corp at eye level, even if I'm a solo inventor.
    - scotty79 2y ago
      Try it. It's not. The best case scenario it might make some huge corporation generously throw you some peanuts for your patent so it can use it for protection against other's creativity and to extort them. Other corps will just use your invention and just skip the markets where you have a patent. And yet their product will find its way there organically. Many individual inventors that got patents openly talk about how useless and expensive they are.

WillPostForFood 2y ago

Yes! The fused deposition modeling (additive printing) patents expired in 2009, which triggered the wave of innovation and home 3d printing. https://futurism.com/expiring-patents-set-to-improve-3d-world https://futurism.com/expiring-patents-set-to-improve-3d-worl...

jerf 2y ago

It's also easy to underestimate how much computation is involved and how little there was in the 70s. The 3D printer slicers generally require several seconds on modern hardware to calculate their final path. The resulting files are in the several megabytes. My Bambu 3D printer is all but festooned with sensors and is constantly adjusting things, but even the simple ones have more to their firmware than meets the eye. Even assuming that they'd use some simpler algorithms and data structures, you're looking at vast computation times, and most likely, vastly simpler objects being printed. Even something that seems as simple as "sous vide" cooking, which is basically a heater hooked to a thermocouple, took a lot of little innovations to make practical to hand to the masses. And then, there's the general improvement in motors speed, precision, and cost, along with any number of advancements here and there and everywhere to make it practical. Could someone thrust back to the 1970s and given a fairly substantial budget make some kind of 3D printer? Probably. But it's slow, extremely expensive, and can print various sizes of plastic bricks and spheres and other very algorithmically simple objects, and in rather low quality without many, many years further development. I can think of many ways of bodging on various improvements, but they're all going to have their own compromises, not be garden paths to what we now think of as modern 3D printing. (For example, someone could bodge together a machine that offsets a rod on the printer head, and then in the offset space, has an object to be "copied", by basically banging into the object with a very crude sensor, so there's no generation of geometry at all. But this is going to be clumsy, inaccurate, and full of very complex and disheartening limitations.) You're not going to be printing Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's face embedded into a toilet [1] or anything, at 1MB of geometry. It will be commercially useless and inaccessible to hobbyists. [1]: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6436138/files https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6436138/files

etrautmann 2y ago
Also 3D modeling software and hardware to run it.
silvestrov 2y ago
AirFryers are even simpler than "sous vide cooking". No reason they couldn't have been invented in the 50s - 60s when kitchens had good electrical supply.
- creaturemachine 2y ago
  Air fryers are just convection ovens packaged differently.
  - jdietrich 2y ago
    Sort of, but not really. Air fryers have a much faster rate of airflow than any convection oven, which results in significantly faster and more even cooking. The air fryer really is a meaningful technological development.
    - knowitnone 2y ago
      if you consider adding a fan as "meaningful technological development"
      - ozim 2y ago
        Well it is. We had electrical ovens without fan that were great. We had electrical ovens with a fan that were great. Air fryer has much more advanced fan with much more power than earlier. For me this is how meaningful technological progress happens. It is not like someone one day wakes up and suddenly has rocket that reached space caught back on landing by mechanical arms.
      - ProllyInfamous 2y ago
        I just purchased my first air fryer summer 2023 — it has changed my cooking life, allowing me to rarely ever "eat out" without much meal prep. "Just adding a fan" is actually an extremely meaningful tech development.

fxtentacle 2y ago

That's also my understanding. The 3D printing boom started when the patents expired.

scotty79 2y ago
Wonderful illustration of how terrible patents are for technological developments of humanity and for consumers in general.
- fxtentacle 2y ago
  You're not wrong. But at the same time, I feel like a patent is roughly the only thing that could stop a wealthy international corporation from just copying my new product and then out-competing me with their generous marketing budget. If the expected payout is large enough, a patent will then also help me find a law firm who's willing to work purely on commission, meaning it causes one of those rare instances where I might be able to meet an international corp at eye level, even if I'm a solo inventor.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    Try it. It's not. The best case scenario it might make some huge corporation generously throw you some peanuts for your patent so it can use it for protection against other's creativity and to extort them. Other corps will just use your invention and just skip the markets where you have a patent. And yet their product will find its way there organically. Many individual inventors that got patents openly talk about how useless and expensive they are.