50 years ago the cell phone was already in development(April 1973), car phones already existed.
Everything else about it is largely just the application of miniaturization. While many advances in materials science are involved in making the modern smart phone viable. Nothing about it would be seen as "science fiction" as it is largely applications of science that was already understood by 1972.
Lol, dude, in 1987 when Star Trek: TNG came out the PADD's were this cool futuristic 'digital book' tech, whereas now by contrast they look stone aged and clunky. Our cell phones as they are now seem to me way beyond what sci-fi authors were expecting within their lifetimes in terms of merging screens, computing, and phone tech.
I... Have doubts about that. By 1987 Cell Phones were around, although the flip-phone (comparable to the TOS communicator) was still about a decade out, the first PDA had already been around since 1984 at that point, although it featured a keyboard.
The PADD was a reasonable extrapolation/iteration of what could be possible based on what already existed. IMO, the PADD is still the superior item, although aspects of its UI do leave a lot to be desired by current standards.
Touchscreens even existed in 1987, although they were more of a pressure/resistance matrix than the sleek and responsive experience portrayed in TNG. We've got the sleek look now with capacitive-touch, the responsive part.... leaves a lot to be desired just yet.
It still stands that at that stage, much of the computer interface/display related stuff in TNG was basically a "futuristic iteration" of things that already existed.
I have memories of things being done with the PADD that would indicate they actually had a pretty good grasp. Kids plays (educational) games on them, (adults would
never do that), crew reading reports/messages(e-mails) on their PADD devices. About the only things they didn't do with the PADD was make phone calls(they had communicators, and their version of Alexa for that), or to do video calls, where they'd actually go to a terminal. However pictures on a PADD display could, and did happen, so it did have some media capability. They just hadn't considered doing
video through the smaller pad when a larger console display was nearby. (that and the special effects to make that work would likely cost a bit more, so cost savings factor in. Easier to do static displays on mobile objects)
As a friend of mine used to snarkily say, 'it's not a phone it's a device', which is all too true. It happens to include phone capabilities but really it's more advanced than $2,000 PC's were in the 90's. A phone can beat grandmasters at chess now. That's not just miniaturization, it's a real breakthrough IMO.
No, that's Moore's Law, which was expressed in 1965. So very predictable in 1972. If anything, they were more optimistic in some respects. Remember 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Hal 9000?
Arthur C Clark was predicting AI by 2001 while in the 1960's. We're in 2022 and are only now getting to the point of an AI that starts to resemble HAL 9000 at a superficial level.
