The 3-d printer is such an idea. For years and years we dreamt of it, then someone came along who made one, and once you see how it works, it's so logical and obvious that you can't believe we didn't have them much much sooner.,(reply>), @Virtual-R So in the end it wasn't computational power, nor the critical point of it becoming affordable enough, nor any other nonsense.<br>In the end what kept us waiting for 3D printing were intellectual property laws.,(reply>), The modern style of 3D printing we have now has been patented since the late 80's, took 20 years for the patent to expire. After that anyone could make them.,(reply>), 3d printing started in the late 80s in industrial applications and spent two decades being refined to a point where it was a viable consumer product. The only miracle that happened in the 2010s was the patents expired.,(reply>), If a computer no more powerful than a gameboy can take us to space, a pentium can 3d-print us some stuff<br>It takes precision mechanical engineering, not necessarily computing power,(reply>), @Pandu POLUAN A 75MHz pentium could run quake realtime. A printhead moved by two servos is not more complicated than that by any stretch of the imagination.