[LVB]

Yep. One thought experiment I like is how well I’d be able to carry forward human technological progress to some primitive group, given any descriptions or samples of said tech that I’d want.

Microprocessors are always the choke point, where I’d be hard pressed to reproduce one, and they form the basis for so much else.

[lordnacho]

Microprocessors are still relatively recent.

What about a bunch of other things like smelting iron or teaching everyone to read? They don't seem like choke points because we are long past them.

[lazide]

The bootstrapping required to produce an iron tool from scratch (really, a small village with a surplus of food sufficient for one full time adult male + accessible ores) is doable in less than a lifetime with some recorded knowledge on how to do it. Even if they’re literally at the mud hut stage.

Producing even the simplest IC? Definitely not. And that is ignoring the need for electricity and everything else required to actually use it.

[vbezhenar]

Smelting some iron is not that hard. You just burn special mud using coal and collect iron drops in the ashes afterwards.

Producing cheap iron is hard.

[baq]

Coal is a recent "invention". The Brits were pretty damn lucky they found lots of it under the last tree they chopped down. It was all wood before that.

[vbezhenar]

You can replace it with charcoal.

[baq]

Technically correct but that's what 'wood' meant

[ClumsyPilot]

The job is not done if you produce unaffordable iron. Producing lots of cheap iron is the job for Industrial Revolution

[ars]

Microprocessors with tiny features are a chokepoint, but I suspect you could make a primitive one if you really worked at it, i.e. go back to 1960's technology, such as the AL1 or 4004.

Even going to 1925 and teaching how to make a MOSFET would help.

[Tade0]

Or disregard silicon entirely and use vacuum tubes combined with relays.

Not particularly micro, but a processor nonetheless.

[6510]

Batteries from wooden crates with newspapers, metal rods and is enough to do telegraph. That it is slightly harder ensures serious use.

If the drinking water is far away at the top of a mountain it isn't so convenient to throw your garbage in it, take a dump in it or float the dead in it.

[raverbashing]

BJTs are possibly easier. And can get you there

(a TTL 4004 would be an energy drain and would be hot, but it would work). I think CRAY used ECL

[fragmede]

nandgame and nand2tetris are important works of teaching for this reason. On the off chance I get thrown back in time to the exact right time for it to be useful, I'll be prepared!

[datavirtue]

I saw someone build a 4004 on a piece of plywood about ten years ago.

[6510]

If given the choice I would chose not to have them.