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You are aware that most of these were sf standards, and most if not all were in development decades before Star Trek, don't you?

Tricorder - Portable scanners are an old sf staple.

Transparent Armor - A Buck Rogers standard that goes back to the source novel "Armagedon 2419AD".

Communicator - A common name for them is 'Walkie-Talkie'. Also an old sf standard. The movie Things to Come had a good one, as did Dick Tracy.

Cloaking Device - A new name for the old invisibility device. See old movie serials, the show Space Patrol, really too many to count.

Hyperdrive - Forbidden Planet, Space Patrol, countless stories, and novels.

Hypospray - This was actually based on the air hypodermic from the 60s.

Telepresence - Two-way video communication is an old concept. Remember the video phone? Hardly unknown in 1966.

David.

Tractor beams go back at least to the Lensman series.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

If you really want to get technical, the "cloaking device" predates science fiction altogether; the helmet worn by Hades, for example, was said to turn the wearer invisible.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

So Star Trek has the transporter (does it?), and maybe the layout of an ergonomic control center? All the major controls within reach without getting up (except Spock's scanner visor), the Captain in a position where he can see what's going on at any station, etc.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

Ergonomic designs also predate ST. Teleportation has been present in science fiction for more than a century, now.

And tales of supernatural instantaneous transport go back millenia.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

OK then, but did any other mythic/SF story put them all together?
(And just for comparison: )
Top 10 NASA Spin-offs

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I want to know how anyone can think that this is a good Star Trek spin off.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

Lensman series, Buck Rogers (pre-TV), Dr. Who all incorporated most if not all of these elements and many more.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Lensman didn't have any computers or teleportation, I believe. They did have forcefields and seomthing rather like the Warp Drive.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

They did have computers, they just wore suits and breathed air.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

GR used to claim that the technology in ST was based on, and extrapolations of real world development. That may have been publicity b.s., but that is what he used to say.

David.

Within the limits of his layman's knowledge of real physics at the time, most of them probably were. At least the main items were, some of the episodes had alien technology that was definitely Clarke-tech; indistinguishable from magic.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Which means they didn't:

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Yes, you just gave the definition of "computer" as it existed at that time. A smart person whose job was computing numbers. Which is how it was used in Lensman.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I thought Trek-style communicators had been around for a long time. We just call 'em "cell phones".

To be fair, I don't think the funreal products really count as Trek-inspired technology. They're more like memorabilia (the ultimate memorabilia, perhaps?). In spite of that, this is a very cool article. I especially liked reading about Purdue's efforts in invisibilty technology.

- Maha "sci-fi is sci-fact - again" Vailo

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When you get down to it, Science answers how. Religion answers why. - hippietrekx

The Warp Point, my new geek culture blog.

"at what time?"and did Smith apply the term computer to his human calculators?

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The term was still in use applying to humans until post- WWII, I think.

I don't know if he used the term. He definitely used the concept.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Yes, he did, and he made a differentiation between them and what we think of as computers by use of the term "mechanical brain." It's in his Lensman series, IIRC, but there may have been mention of it in the Skylark series as well. I remember being confused by the concept when I first read the books as a kid.

__________________
We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

At the very least, I do think Star Trek inspired the flip phone design, and helps account for its popularity. For me, there are other cell phone shapes, but that's the only "right" one.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

For an earlier transporter (teleportation device), see The Fly.

Dave Mitsky

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Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Mr. Sulu, fire phasers!The article dates from 1936.

__________________
We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

I don't agree with that.
1. How do you make something smaller when not in use? Fold it in half.
2. How do you protect the workings of a device, put a lid over it.
Example: Switchblades.
Popularity can include many things, so I will agree to some portion here.
Which could be because of the above reasons (at least to a degree).

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Okay, so nothing in Star Trek was really original (actually, anyone who's seen Forbidden Planet could have told you that).
So could we instead say that Star Trek popularized these things? I believe that's one of the ideas behind How William Shatner Changed the World.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

Forbidden Planet was the inspiration for many of Roddenberry's gadgets and notions in Star Trek but not all of them obviously. I certainly credit Star Trek for popularizing many print sci-fi concepts.

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

But there are many ways to get to a useful design, and cell phones (as well as non-cell portable radios) were far too large to fit that shape for a long time. I think it represented a design goal.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

mmmm you said my favorite movie! *drool*

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http://www.ryanmercer.com
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http://www.pleasegodhelpme.org

The movie that got me hooked on sf when I saw it on the ABC tv network wayyyyyyyyy back in the early 60s. Have you seen the new dvd yet? If not get it, it is fantastic. The cut scenes really add to it, particularly the Unicorn discussion. I just wish that they had included all of the deleted scenes, like where Morbius tells Altaira to make a choice. The test footage of the Altair IV planet model blows any cgi out of the water.

Van Rijn, you do realize that the communicator was nothing more than a compact hand-held radio? A super powerful walkie-talkie? If you want to talk compact, well Rocky Jones had small, pen-like radios. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. had cigarette pack size, then pen size radios, also called communicators. In the movie "Things to Come" they had voice addressed wrist phones, the real, first cell phones? Dick Tracy had wrist radios, although the tv show used the toys as props.

The great thing about ST, like SWs, is that it took sf concepts and exposed them to a wider audience. Both deserve credit for that.

David.

No, I don't realize that. There were strong hints that the communicator was more than just a walkie-talkie.

So, what do common cell phones look like? What shape do they have?

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

What hints? Seriously, I am genuinely curious. It was clearly shown to be a transceiver. It function like the personal communicators in "Forbidden Planet", except those also had a camera, like many of todays cell phones. Does that mean that the radios in FP were cell phones? To blow FP's horn some more, it also had wireless earphones, and microphones.

Various shapes, most of them boxy rectangles, like a walkie-talkie. However I am not aware of one that is shaped like the ST communicator with a large grid antenna, and no separate speaker, and microphone. They have tried to make them, but for some reason Paramount will not sell the license to do so.

There is a saying, form follows function. A device will be packaged in the shape most suited for ease of use. Back in the 90s they marked a cell phone that was no larger than a Wrigley's gum Plenty Pack. To use it you had to rotate the antenna up, and the microphone down. It didn't last, it was too small and hard to use. The first calculator watches had buttons so small that you had to use a supplied stylus (easily, and usually lost), or tooth pick to push the buttons. Many of today's devices are larger than they have to be, so that they can be more easily used. If a device is too inconvenient to operate, then people will not embrace it, and it will fail.

Look at devices that are designed to fit in the human hand. Most are boxy rectangles. That is the best shape, that is the most cost effective to manufacture.

David.