"Sort of. Best I can figure out, using my best technical terms borrowed from old sci-fi holovids, is our timeline diverged from at least this Earth's in the 1950s. More effort was spent on developing nuclear technology than on miniaturization or the microchip. And there was almost no focus on display technology.
"This isn't to say my ancestors didn't have low tech computers, but in different ways. Take the PipBoy. It was the height of computer miniaturization technology where I come from--a wrist mounted computer more than twice the size of this thing," she held up the smartphone-like comm, "and with only a monochrome display. But, it still has excellent memory storage, able to hold the same amount of data as a full size terminal, and with the right set up, has programs sophisticated enough to monitor the wearer's health, down to his levels of hydration and sleep deprivation. And because we have not only fission batteries but even microfusion power sources, they or any other computerized device or robot can run hundreds of years on one power cell."
She spread her hands. "So the thing is--it's not so much less, but different. Things like the graphic processors they've got here? I've never seen anything like'em. But they're almost requisite here, so if I want to learn to build and rebuild, I need to know what to look for to pick the right hardware and avoid incompatibilities."
no subject
"This isn't to say my ancestors didn't have low tech computers, but in different ways. Take the PipBoy. It was the height of computer miniaturization technology where I come from--a wrist mounted computer more than twice the size of this thing," she held up the smartphone-like comm, "and with only a monochrome display. But, it still has excellent memory storage, able to hold the same amount of data as a full size terminal, and with the right set up, has programs sophisticated enough to monitor the wearer's health, down to his levels of hydration and sleep deprivation. And because we have not only fission batteries but even microfusion power sources, they or any other computerized device or robot can run hundreds of years on one power cell."
She spread her hands. "So the thing is--it's not so much less, but different. Things like the graphic processors they've got here? I've never seen anything like'em. But they're almost requisite here, so if I want to learn to build and rebuild, I need to know what to look for to pick the right hardware and avoid incompatibilities."