[afarrell]

> I founded a company based on the latter that is ticking over nicely.

I'm curious: How much does your company's product rely on materials that either didn't exist 20 years ago or were significantly more expensive to procure in small quantities 20 years ago?

I ask because I have a hypothesis that a lot of things that seem like low-hanging-fruit that should have been invented earlier actually depend on the abundance of materials and manufacturing processes that only became common 20ish years before the invention.

[simonbarker87]

The product would not have been possible 20 years ago as the fans would have konked out due to the heat, and the plastic would have yellowed and gone brittle also due to the heat.

So we needed materials science improvements to make the product viable. I don't think I was advocating for low hanging fruit but instead progress in various fields allow other things to be invented, some of them I guess become low hanging fruit.

[varjag]

Nearly all commercial plastics available now were available back in 1997. Even exotic things like PEEK.

The yellowing is due to flame retardant additive to ABS granules. Modern flame resistant ABS stock is prone to same issues.

[simonbarker87]

We use a heat-resistant ABS, 20 years ago it would have yellowed, now it doesn't.

[varjag]

Heat resistant suggests a higher melting point, it is not necessarily flame retardant. The yellowed plastics on old consumer electronics aren't specifically heat resistant.