I agree with BIll. I understand Herb's point but just want to comment that even if the home printers don't evolve above printing plastic (which I don't believe will be the case), they can already have a decent impact on society. If it becomes commonplace and intuitive enough for the average Joe to use, a lot of things that are bought retail would no longer need to be bought. There is a lot of plastic stuff out there that people use every day beyond eating utensils. Replacement parts, toys, gifts, all small things in a sense, but still quite neat to be able to make yourself. I just bought a home printer for myself in December. It was a retail i3 clone marketed by Monoprice, and cost 200 bucks. A relatively small amount of money, with tons of potential. The impact on the industrial side will be a bigger wave when it comes to pass, and the more sophisticated the industrial printers get, the more sophisticated the home ones will get. It doesn't even need to get to a point where every Average Joe knows how to use them. Enough people having more knowledge on small scale\personal manufacturing enables even more people who have an idea or vision but lacks the equipment\skills to get something prototyped quicker and cheaper than in the past. I guess only time will tell. Matt On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 11:51 AM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
One major difference between the PC and 3DP is the latter will require
substantial materials advancements to make it usefully mainstream and there doesn't seem to be a Moore's law driving that.
That statement, hints at something important. I'm tired of every techie/consumer/science advancement in the last few decades, being compared to the personal computing revolution and to "Moore's Law".
Digital technology - almost ALL of it - has advanced in doing THE SAME THING: representing a one or zero with smaller physical hardware. Below the microscopic, it's now below WAVELENGTHS OF LIGHT. OK? Re-read those statements. That's the corollary to Moore's Law.
Now: will a 3D printer "advance", by printing pea-sized beer-can openers? Is a 3D printed car a revolution - if it's Hot Wheels sized?
So, 3D printing + Moore's Law = zero.
Detailed discussion of 3D printing is, as Evan noted, off-topic. But as an engineer, I see that 3D printers have to do more than print plastic forks to be useful to most consumers, and to many techs. But to handle more robust materials, you need more robust tools. A hot tip and a gear to extrude plastic noodles won't get you there. Sorry to those disappointed, but as I said, expectations are too high, the suggested comparison fails.
But we vintage computerists, are in the best position, to deny the premise that "3D printing will be the next revolution, like personal computers". We (some of us) know WHY personal computing (and embedded computing) were revolutionary. From an engineering view, 3D printing will be at best, *evolutionary*, like many other advances in technology and materials and processes.
Herb Johnson BSEE 1976
-- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT info