Comments on: What famous inventions have non-famous alternatives or competitors?

Question: What famous inventions have non-famous alternatives or competitors?

damn dirty ape — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:53:46 -0800

What famous inventions have non-famous alternatives or competitors?

I'm trying to develop an alternate earth where history went a little differently thus technology is a little different. Im looking for alternatives to commonly used technology. For instance, the V8 engine and the Wankel engine. Helicopters and ornithopters. Edison wanted to electrify homes with AC power and Tesla with DC power. The early web and gopher.

I'd love to hear more. Thanks.

By: iviken

iviken — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:00:58 -0800

Aeroplanes vs airships.

By: todbot

todbot — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:02:47 -0800

Use of airships took a big hit after the Hindenburg. I like to imagine that if such an accident wouldn't have happened, the safe use of hydrogen as a lifting gas would've had several decades of R&D, and today dirigibles would be as common as planes & trains.

By: No New Diamonds Please

No New Diamonds Please — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:07:15 -0800

You've got your Edison and Tesla preferences reversed. Tesla was all about the AC. Whoops!

Aversive stimulus electric shock coming your way!

By: andshewas

andshewas — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:17:50 -0800

vhs vs. beta?

By: the dief

the dief — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:20:49 -0800

HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray?

By: the dief

the dief — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:21:28 -0800

You could have Studebaker and Tucker automobiles!

By: Fuzzy Skinner

Fuzzy Skinner — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:21:40 -0800

Not sure if you want equivalent quality, or less advanced, but here's a few. Note that they may not all exist in the same universe. One or two may be my own "inventions.":

DVD vs. Vinyl video disks. (Way worse technology.)

Commonly available internet vs. Commonly available teletype-like device.

Home-processed film for home movies instead of video tape/digital

Multi-disk CD (or mini-disk) Walkman instead of iPod/MP3 players

Dreamcast as the dominant video game system.

Electric cars have actually been around a long time, but never caught on.

By: the_dude

the_dude — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:21:42 -0800

People claim all sorts of things how early cars used to use electricity and in fact ethanol rather than gasoline. In fact, I'm pretty sure T1 worked on ethanol.

There is LaserDisc and some DVD Audio standards (although I heard DVD Audio is actually used in a few settings still).

This seems pretty interesting by the way. I love this sort of alternate future stories.

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:27:30 -0800

Ternary computers instead of binary computers! Instead of 100110110 we'd have 1 0 -1 -1 0 1 1 -1 0 1 -1

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:27:30 -0800

Roman numerals vs. Arabic numerals

The Gregorian calendar vs. the Hindu/Julian/Hebrew/Chinese/Buddhist/Mayan, etc calendar systems.

Chopsticks vs. forks

By: theichibun

theichibun — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:31:06 -0800

Sega not shooting themselves in the foot. This is obviously my opinion, but I've always felt that Sega was ahead of the curve as far as video game technology.

Alternatively, think about a world where Sega never existed and Nintendo was able to sit around create on their own schedule instead of being pushed to keep up.

Sega CD and Playstation can go the same way.

To go along with andshewas answer, you can throw Laserdisc into the mix.

Depending on when you want to set this, you could even possibly use the current switch to digital television. I'm not sure what kind of long term impact it will have, but I doubt people really know that kind of thing anyway.

Before there were iPods, there were models made by Rio, Eiger Labs and Compaq. Wikipedia Article for some reference there.

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:39:05 -0800

Another interesting twist would be if Xerox and IBM had not screwed the pooch in competition against Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Dell.

We'd all be using Xerox PARC operating systems in our IBM desktops.

I imagine under that scenario, Netscape might not have died if Microsoft didn't exist to kill them with Internet Explorer...

By: dubitable

dubitable — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:52:39 -0800

I'm expanding your question a little in my answer, to focus on more general alternate paths for technologies, not just technologies that had a direct competitor...I hope it qualifies:

Maybe you could make something of the different stages of the development of calculus...if you want to consider a set of mathematical principles and techniques a "technology" (arguably, I think you can). It'd be interesting to examine what would have happened if it had been nailed down earlier by a different civilization, or if Newton or Leibniz had been out of the picture (if Leibniz hadn't been around, perhaps Newton never would have published it?). And considering how important calculus is to modern science, this could have had very interesting and huge ramifications.

As an example of what you're talking about (which you may very well be aware of if you are writing such a story) have you checked out The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson? Again, it doesn't exactly have the binary opposition you are looking for but is in the world of "alternative history because of technological innovation" lit.

Fun stuff!

By: Maxwell_Smart

Maxwell_Smart — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:53:59 -0800

There was a doctor named William Coley who performed a promising (in the 1890's, at least) series of experiments on patients with cancer. His method involved injecting a weakened pathogen into the patient which would stimulate a broad-scale immune system response, which would then go after the cancerous cells.

His line of research received little attention after the discovery of radiation treatment, and most modern research has been on chemotherapeutic agents.

There is an interesting account in American Scientist. It appears that their take-home conclusion is that Coley's methods were no magic bullet, but there is enough there to merit further study.

Quick googling seems to show that researchers are starting to put a little more time into revisiting his idea of stimulating the immune system to attack cancer, but by using modern methods to craft pathogens that might stimulate a more specific response.

By: furtive

furtive — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:00:42 -0800

During WWII plans were drawn up and experiments held to make an aircraft carrier out of pykete, a form of ice mixed with wood pulp which is almost as strong as concrete, slow melting, and fast to manufacture. See project Habakkuk for details.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:04:26 -0800

Mechanical television succeeds over electronic television.

By: WPW

WPW — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:06:53 -0800

Microscopy develops in the 1600s, but we don't get germ theory until the 1800s. What if Leeuwenhoek developed germ theory early, and it became established? History would be utterly changed, and millions wouldn't die. We're really the dunce timeline here, sticking with bad theories for 200 years.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:07:06 -0800

If Henry Ford hadn't found a way to manufacture automobiles profitably (mass-produced, instead of the hand-crafted one-offs that were coming out of Germany) you wouldn't have the push for a giant highway system, the creation of which fundamentally altered our rural landscapes, while in the cities resulted in the destruction of vast swaths of pre-industrial neighborhoods—most of which had become thriving ethnic enclaves of immigrants by the turn of the century. The railroads—already working with an eighty-year head-start, would have pushed for light rail in response to natural urban growth. The air would be vastly cleaner, and city streets would probably be more walkable. Already large American cities would rapidly grow into megalopolises because the lack of easy mobility—and because it's harder to move around, you wouldn't have seen the effects of white flight and the rise of suburbia, at least not nearly to the extremes we see today. Politically, the Middle East would be a slightly-wealthier version of South America, and about as politically influential, as you wouldn't have the extremely concentrated wealth that resulted from the higher demands for foreign oil, (which begets coups, which begets political extremism, which begets the current shit-storm you see).

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:19:45 -0800

Beds vs. hammocks.
Antibiotics vs. bacteriophages.

By: box

box — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:32:34 -0800

Suspenders vs. belts.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:41:04 -0800

We could count on our fingers and toes.

By: Mike1024

Mike1024 — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:07:42 -0800

The early web and gopher.

For a time a lot of people got online through single-company 'walled gardens' like Compuserve and AOL. These services provided web access and e-mail, but also a large array of forums, downloads, chat rooms and suchlike available only to their subscribers.

If the web didn't take off at the time it did, we could have ended up with walled-garden services from a handful of companies being the dominant internet content model, which needless to say would make the internet a very different place.

By: kickingtheground

kickingtheground — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:10:31 -0800

Autogyros instead of helicopters / fixed-wing aircraft.

By: adipocere

adipocere — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:12:25 -0800

If Edison's nickel-iron car battery was not considered "too good."

By: Chocolate Pickle

Chocolate Pickle — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:14:34 -0800

What you're talking about is what steampunk is all about.

Generally speaking, the main differences are steam instead of internal combustion, brass instead of steel, and dirigibles instead of wings. But there are a lot of other differences (gas lighting instead of electricity). Steampunk is by now a well-developed mythos which is the collective creation of a lot of people who wanted exactly the same thing you're asking about. It should be a good source for you to mine for ideas.

(Also, NNDP is right. Edison was all about DC. George Westinghouse was the one who made AC the standard.)

By: jamjam

jamjam — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:02:17 -0800

What if Leeuwenhoek developed germ theory early, and it became established? History would be utterly changed, and millions wouldn't die.

All von Leeuwenhoek might have needed to do was read Fracastoro:

During the last century of the Renaissance, Girolamo Fracastoro gathered and interpreted information about the scourges of his day: smallpox, typhoid, leprosy, bubonic plague, syphilis, and typhus. In 1546, he published the idea that diseases were caused by disease-specific germs that could multiply within the body and be transmitted directly from person to person, or indirectly on contaminated objects, even over long distances; moreover, he proposed that variations in the intensity of epidemics could be attributed to changes in the virulence of germs.

By: Quietgal

Quietgal — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:12:28 -0800

The Stirling engine, an early rival to the steam engine, is currently getting renewed interest because of its efficiency and its ability to run on "waste" heat. Definitely a plausible alternative technology and it was invented in 1816 so it's not exactly space-age engineering.

By: Quietgal

Quietgal — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:30:35 -0800

Thought of another: Peltier cooling (a.k.a. thermoelectric cooling), rather than compressor-type cooling systems. But Peltier cooling is really inefficient, so it's not used very often. (However, it's handy if you want the same gizmo to both heat and cool.) Also, it's electronic so may be a little too high-tech for your scenario.

An example of alternative technology that was rightfully abandoned when something better came along is the chain-stitch sewing machine. The earliest machines formed a chain stitch, rather than the lock stitch we use now. A chain-stitch machine is easier to build but the resulting seam is highly failure-prone - one missed stitch and the whole thing just "unzips". Which could be used to hilarious effect in your story, perhaps.

By: damn dirty ape

damn dirty ape — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:35:01 -0800

Also, it's electronic so may be a little too high-tech for your scenario.

High tech is good. Im focusing on the modern world or at least post WWII. Thanks.

By: Quietgal

Quietgal — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:10:49 -0800

Oooh, this is fun. Wind power! No need to stop at medieval technology for grinding flour, you can generate electricity with wind turbines. You can even build a better sailing ship, like the Cousteau Society's Alcyone. (Um, OK, Alcyone uses wind as a supplemental energy source for propulsion, but your alternative-history engineers will do better than us, right?)

By: skaye

skaye — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:44:38 -0800

nuclear energy instead of coal/fossil fuels - on a scale where every house and office would be heated/lit/run on nuclear energy. as if chernobyl had never happened. i imagine the world would be pretty different, for better or worse!

By: carpyful

carpyful — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:01:41 -0800

How about the US using the metric system?

By: Muffy

Muffy — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:10:23 -0800

Tesla nearly invented radio, but Marconi beat him to it, though Tesla famously quipped "Yes, but he was using 20 of my patents to do so." He, however, called it something like "thought transmission."

By: cass

cass — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:58:00 -0800

Dvorak vs. Qwerty

By: Scoo

Scoo — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:55:18 -0800

Waren Ellis' Ministry of Space has Wernher von Braun surrendering to the British, leading to the UK dominating space, setting up bases on the Moon and Mars, etc, as a result of going through with von Braun's original plans for space exploration.