New technologies that are less "advanced" than old?

[vco]

Ever since electric cars became increasingly popular I've been wondering whether there are some other examples where new technology is less "advanced" than the old. I mean, electric motors are considerably simpler technologically compared to piston engines. Are there more such examples or is this just an exception?

 

[Drakkith]

I mean, electric motors are considerably simpler technologically compared to piston engines.

But... are they? The reciprocating internal combustion engine is about 200 years old, with commercially viable engines being around 150-170 years old. DC motors were invented around 170 years ago and didn't become commercially successful until around 30 years later. And it's difficult to look at the state of electric motors without also looking at what powered them. Both primary batteries and electric generators (being essentially electric motors ran in 'reverse') were extremely primitive and simple compared to modern designs, and it wasn't until the widespread development of an electric distribution grid that they truly came into their own.

I would argue that both are equally complicated technologies, with different strengths and weaknesses that must be taken into account. The fact that one appears to be simpler than another belies the two centuries of advancements that has taken place to get them to where they are today.

 

[jedishrfu]

Technologies often battle for supremacy and the one with the "best value" wins in the marketplace.

In the case of cars, there were some remarkable ideas applied by startups that got killed by the bigger companies. One such example was the Tucker auto. It features many new ideas that others didn't have at the time but the others won because of bigger marketshare and other strategies designed to push Tucker out of business. One could argue that while he was a head of his time with a better design but the other cars had better value.

Tesla today is in a similar bind in that his cars are more expensive and can't beat gas cars for the convenience of filling up the tank and you're ready to go. For long trips, you have to plan carefully to either find a Tesla charging station for a fast charge or utilize some hotel facility ie outlets for a slower charge. This limits Teslas to folks who mostly drive locally and can charge overnight. However, battery tech is improving and who knows when a 1000 mile on a single charge will pop up. (The maximum a normal driver can stand to drive before serious fatigue sets in in a day).

Electric vehicles were around during the very early years f car history but battery tech was't sufficiently ready for the challenge.

Another tech was steam driven cars like the Stanley Steamer. They could have taken off too but didn't One could argue that steam technology was superior to gas tech at the time.

https://www.carkeys.co.uk/news/why-does-nobody-make-a-steam-powered-car
but I think the gas approach was simpler overall and so won out once the electric starter motor was invented.

 

[anorlunda]

I mean, electric motors are considerably simpler technologically compared to piston engines.

Yes and no. The latest trend is to use BLDC motors in applications like EVs. You must include the digital controller as a necessary part of the BLDC motor. That makes them much less simple than "ordinary" DC or AC motors.

But there are also repeated cyclic changes simpler/complex/simpler/complex. I read about that more than 50 years ago in the Hacker's Dictionary. http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_18.html#TAG411

cycle of reincarnation /n./

[coined in a paper by T. H. Myer and I.E. Sutherland "On the Design of Display Processors", Comm. ACM, Vol. 11, no. 6, June 1968)] Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose peripheral hardware for speed, then the peripheral evolves toward more computing power as it does its job, then somebody notices that it is inefficient to support two asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function back into the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again.

Several iterations of this cycle have been observed in graphics-processor design, and at least one or two in communications and floating-point processors. Also known as `the Wheel of Life', `the Wheel of Samsara', and other variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist theological idea. See also blitter, bit bang.

The same cycles happened with computer terminals. Smart/dumb/smart/dumb. It is still happening. I recently switched from a PC to a Chromebook. The Chromebook does less than a PC can, but the limited things it can do it does better. Some people might call that a "downgrade" but I call it an "upgrade."

 

[jedishrfu]

The terminal story is so true. Dumb Model 33 teletypes, then smart cathode terminals like Hazeltine, then dumb cathode terminals like Televideo, then PCs as terminals then X-window based terminals and back to PCs running web browsers to cell phones running browsers. Each step overall went to a better value place.

Computers to0 went through this cycle:
-from small mainframes that did one job
- to large mainframes that did many jobs
- to smaller mainframes that did many jobs with redundancy then
- to small machines that did one job
- to small machines that multitasked
- to client/server

and most recently to web browser based computing in the age of server farms which arguably are extremely large mainframes configured as many smaller computers with fault tolerance...

 

[anorlunda]

The terminal story is so true.

The thing that remains invariant is that at each stage of the game we choose the solution we considered "best". Best varies with time, even cyclical variations. I prefer the words better and best instead of advanced.

Edit: We like to think that today technical world is so different from that of our forefathers, but in this example, we see that it wasn't different at all. This entire thread could have been posted 60 years ago with only minor edits.

 

[russ_watters]

I'd say "advanced" is synonomous with "new" (we're talking about technology), but the OP seems to consider it synonomous with "complex"...even specifically with respect to moving parts. A Tesla is not a golf cart. It has much more going on than just the number of rotating parts.

 

[vco]

I'd say "advanced" is synonomous with "new" (we're talking about technology), but the OP seems to consider it synonomous with "complex"...even specifically with respect to moving parts. A Tesla is not a golf cart. It has much more going on than just the number of rotating parts.

Yes, maybe I should have used the word "complex" instead. But I didn't necessarily refer to the number of rotating parts. I meant the complexity of involved engineering/physics. With a piston engine you have for example reactive fluid dynamics inside a rapidly changing domain. For example the electromagnetic phenomena of an electric motor are simpler compared to that.

 

[jedishrfu]

Other factors come into play which vary with the times and technology:
- cost to buy
- cost to fix
- cost for fuel
- ease of repair
- ease of use

Gas cars won out because these factors were arguably easier on the consumer than other options.

Tesla did an interesting ploy with their cars by offering cheaper insurance with the car. Since they could price the insurance based on driver habits that they in fact record. This is an advantage over other car manufacturers today.

Cost of ownership is reduced if you're a good driver and a Tesla isn't as expensive if you purchase their car insurance.

 

[cjl]

Tesla's insurance is a largely failed attempt to offer cheaper insurance - it actually ended up being just as expensive (if not more so) than most other insurance companies. The ability to price insurance based on driver habits is also not new - many insurance companies offer this through a small OBD2 dongle you can plug into almost any car newer than 1996.

 

[Klystron]

Consider the technological history of transportation navigation tracking, particularly aircraft but also water and land based transport. Before satellite telecommunications became cost effective and reliable, transport aircraft were tracked by active radar that also included onboard Identification Friend or Foe (IFF), Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) and other beacon/active/passive* tracking systems.

The global positioning systems (GPS) largely replaces or duplicates many of these active systems. While difficult to apply labels such as 'advanced' and 'complex' to such wide spread networks and mixed systems, no doubt GPS greatly simplifies tracking transport vehicles of all types compared to ground radar installations. Examine government plans for maintaining and adding regional radar sites compared to similar budgets for GPS, also comparing derived transportation information.

* Active radar transmits rf at a particular wavelength, then receives a return.
Passive systems listen for rf signals (from onboard) and rf returns in selected bands.
Beacons such as LORAN transmit predetermined rf signals, not unlike a lighthouse.

IFF and TCAS remain passive onboard until triggered by coded rf then transmit data.