Slashdot Mirror
How 3D Printers Went Mainstream After Decades In Obscurity
An anonymous reader writes: By now, everyone knows the likes of MakerBot, Bre Pettis, and the gun-printing cage rattlers at Defense Distributed. But the tale of 3D-printing goes all the way back to the heady pre-Macintosh days of 1983, and a simple plastic cup holds the distinction of being the first-ever 3D-printed object. Garage entrepreneur Chuck Hull managed to print it using cobbled-together hardware that looked like something out of Waterworld, laying the fragile plastic framework for everything to come. From retrofitted hot glue guns, to a machine made specifically to print on-demand shot glasses, the last 30 years in 3D printing have been full of strange twists, odd characters and melted failures. And the possibilities are just beginning to emerge now that anyone can play.
Their patents expired. It was hip new technology in the 1980's with a lot of industrial researchers making exciting new tools and generally doing what patents encourage.
But there was only niche use for it, and the cost of all the overlapping patents stifled the market for 30 years. You couldn't sell a 3D printer without paying homage (and a fuckton of cash) to the inventors back in the 80's.
Those patents are expiring and now making, selling, and operating 3D printers is economically viable for the general populace and not just niche tool shops with a big wad of cash. Without the burden that those patents created, the technology was allowed to go mainstream.
Kinda makes you wonder if existence of patents are such a good idea in the first place.
I thought this was common knowledge.
Newton message pad? heck even touch styles have been around since the 70's
The base technology is just starting to catch up with the dreamers. Microsoft was promoting tablet edition windows XP in 2002. It took until 2010 until the tech caught up to the promise(and even then it still has a lot of things to improve on.
Quad copters have been built and flown since the 1930's but the tech was always just lacking. it took computers to create fine enough controls to stabilize the flights enough to be practical. In coming Decades we are going to look back at the various flying machines of the 1950's and 1960's and build them with new tech. The base ideas are the same it is the material science, sensor designs, small enough transistors that has drastically improved to make old ideas practical.
Look at the V-22 Osprey. That machine literally couldn't fly in the 1980's they couldn't quite get it to work. It took 15 years of additional refinement to make it practical.
3D printers aren't quite there yet. the material science is still working on it. But it is a good start.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
You can also print out little toy solders for your kids if you have them. Why stop there? Need a certain Lego part for that extra special project? Model and print your own.