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Alternate Tech Alternate Technology By: Dale R. Cozort |
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What if Columbus Hadn't Made it Back? What if France Had Fought On From North Africa? Part II
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Somebody
commented in POD a few years ago that no bad alternate history would be
complete without at least one dirigible. Some technologies just
seem to fit into alternate history: Dirigibles, trolleys, solar cells,
flying cars, private space flight, Orion-type Spaceships, and steam
powered cars all come to mind. I’ve come across a lot of articles
on the Internet on alternate technology lately. Here are some
excerpts along with the web addresses, and some brief comments. “the HAA is
going to be 25 times
larger the Goodyear Blimp. That
is the length of 1 2/3 footballs fields, or almost 1/10 of a mile and a
volume of almost 39 million gallons. In short, these things are going
to be enormous. The reason they are going to be so big is because their
mission is pretty demanding. The production models will be
even bigger, and powered by solar cells. From the same source: "The production HAA’s will probably be designed to fly at
100,000 ft
and operate autonomously for a year over both the United States and hot
spots like Iraq. The current plan is for them to compliment both
satellite and airplane surveillance and an initial order of at least 22
units is currently projected. The upper surface of the envelope will be
coated with flexible solar cells to charge the lead-acid batteries
during the day, and the airship will remain stationary over the target
using electric fans. Unlike a Zeppelin, the HAA’s envelope will not be
rigid but will be made out of a flexible proprietary laminate material,
however it will still use helium to generate lift. It will carry a
4,000 lb payload which will primarily consist of electronic and/or
video surveillance equipment, but if the HAA proves successful, the
telecommunications industry will probably be very interested in using
them”
This is still very much a ‘paper ship” so far. Apparently feasibility studies have been going on since 1998, and in September of 2003, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems of Akron Ohio received a contract for Phase 2, which is detailed design for a prototype. That’s scheduled to be done by June 2004, and it will hopefully be followed by actually building a prototype in Phase 3, which would run from June 2004 to July 2006. Will that actually happen? I don’t know. I hope so. Sounds like cool technology. The X-Prize: [The
X-Prize is] a $10 Million cash prize for the first team that -
“Even
though I work on rockets, I love the idea of the X Prize because large
corporations and the government are too risk averse to effectively
develop novel new solutions for reducing launch costs. Just witness the
public outrage over the recent loss of the Columbia. The government
also does not seem to be very interested in vehicles that are not
capable of making it all the way into Earth orbit, even though there is
a market for sub-orbital vehicles, most notably space tourism.” “The backers of the X Prize hope
that private companies and individuals will be able to succeed where
government and large corporations have failed to even try. There are
currently 24 teams vying for the X Prize, and the amount of money they
will spend collectively is much greater than the $10 million prize that
is offered. There are not many situations where you get more research
done than what you pay for, so in that respect alone, the X Prize can
already be considered a success.”
Solar Cells:
We’re long overdue for our solar future. I seem to
remember a time back in the early 1980s when oil was going to run out
in ten years or so, but we didn’t have to worry because the price of
solar cells was going to fall drastically, and they were going to be
competitive with fossil fuels by about 1986, falling quickly from over
$6 per watt to around fifty cents, and showing up on suburban
rooftops. January 6, 2004 “ICP
Solar Technologies Inc. (ICP), a developer of solar products for
consumers, and SCOTTeVEST LLC (SeV), a leading Technology Enabled
Clothing® (TEC) company, will unveil the first solar power jacket
prototypes designed to allow wearers to carry, connect and charge their
portable digital devices, at the 2004 International CES, January 8-11,
Las Vegas.” “The ICP Global Solar division
is integrating ICP’s flexible thin-film photovoltaic technologies
(CIGS) in three models of SCOTTeVEST® jackets. These jackets will
allow wearers to carry, connect and charge their portable digital
devices in one convenient and fully integrated package. Strategically
mounted CIGS panels are pre-wired, providing solar power to individual
devices for power storage (charging) or immediate consumption.” They have
ambitious plans for solar powered clothing: “Through
its wholly-owned division, Technology Enabled Clothing® (TEC),
SCOTTeVEST LLC will assist ICP in showcasing the potential of
integrating solar technology into clothing. TEC owns the intellectual
property rights associated with the incorporation of third-party wires
into clothing through a series of internal, hidden conduits referred to
as a Personal Area Network (P.A.N.). In addition to incorporating the
solar panels in SCOTTeVEST products, TEC expects to assist ICP in
bringing solar technology into other mainstream outerwear clothing
products using its patent-pending P.A.N. design. "We are constantly seeking
solutions to build state-of-the-art wearable technology. We believe
that this project represents the next logical step in consumer wearable
computers. No longer will you have to rely on traditional power sources
to recharge your mobile electronic devices. We expect solar panels
together with the P.A.N. to be incorporated into approximately 30% of
all outerwear in the next three to five years.”, said Scott Jordan,
Chairman and CEO of SCOTTeVEST LLC.
If you've ever bought and been disappointed
by one of those solar path lights, here is an (extremely expensive)
alternative: A solar powered paving tile. From: http://www.dansdata.com/ledlights10.htm
<with a big snip of LED flashlight reviews at beginning> SolarCap Lighting is a Korean outfit that's positioned itself firmly at the top of the solar-powered-light market. SolarCap's products are not cheap. But they're arguably worth it. Their Light Emitting Tile is a serious, industrial-strength, virtually indestructible light - well, OK, it's not bulletproof, but you can drive cars over it all day - for those situations where you want something of roughly night-light brightness <<snip>> that can be glued, bolted or even mortared in place, without wires, and will Just Work for a decade or more. OK, you may occasionally need to hose some bird poo off. But that's it for maintenance. <<snip>> The LET emits enough light that you can find your way around the house by it at night, but it's not really meant to be installed alone. Multiple LETs can be used to mark the edges of driveways and such, cast a pale coloured moonlight around an area, and also provide a rather decorative effect. <<snip>> The LET gets its ten-year-plus life span by not using batteries for energy storage. Instead, it's got "pseudocapacitors". Pseudocaps, also known as double layer capacitors, supercapacitors, ultracapacitors and "GoldCaps", are like a hybrid between a capacitor and an electrochemical cell; they can't be charged and discharged as violently as a cap, but they don't wear out like a battery. A nickel cadmium or nickel metal hydride battery, even if it's really carefully charged and protected from complete discharge causing cell reversal (cheap solar garden lights aren't at all nice to their batteries) will only survive for some hundreds of charge cycles. An ultracapacitor can be expected to last for hundreds of thousands of cycles before losing significant capacity, and should still be useful for a lot more cycles. <<snip>> The suggested retail price for the Light Emitting Tiles in green, blue or white (red, yellow and orange tiles are in the pipeline) is an imposing $US250 per unit. By the way,
Dan's Data has an enormous number of often very good reviews of gadgets
and computer stuff.
For all of those
whatifs, and a lot more, there are groups of a few hundred or a few
thousand or even a few million people who live their computers
lives as though they were in an alternate time-line where Microsoft
never became the dominant operating system. The smaller groups
communicate, swap parts and software, and often write and sell new
stuff via the Internet. I recently stumbled across a site about
one of those groups: "Commodore
One Specifications
Here
is a General Overview of the features of the Commodore One as of
12/22/2002. Some features may change slightly as development
progresses. What
it is:
So in other words, for $250-300
plus the cost of a computer case you can end up with a very fast
C64-like machine. I guess I can see the appeal to hobbyists and
C64 die-hards. People who grew up programming at the bare metal level
and still enjoy doing it
would find this machine very interesting.
The C-One computer is a 2003 enhanced adaptation of the Commodore 64--the most sold of any computer model (Guiness book of World Records) While retaining almost all of the original's capabilities the C-One adds modern features, interfacing and capabilities and is a sorely needed fill for a gap in the hobbyist computer market. The price is 269- EUR with 65816 CPU (including German sales tax of 16%). (user will need to supply an ATX style case, ATX power supply, drive(s), PS/2 keyboard, mouse, memory and SVGA capable monitor.) Features/Product Description Physical Appearance · The CommodoreOne is a motherboard ready to mount into an ATX style computer case. Ports will match the holes of the case, except for the audio connectors, which do not fit without mechanical modification of the case (holes have to be drilled). " Comments are very welcome.
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Copyright 2004 By Dale R. Cozort |