> If it wasn't for the computing power/software complexity required, hobbyist 3D printers could probably have been a thing in the 70s or 80s
That statement completely ignores enormous quantities of engineering that have occurred.
Stepper motors, for example, had huge amounts of engineering thrown at them by disk drive manufacturers in order to get them where we are now.
Resin printers needed high precision galvanometers to direct laser beams. The control of that would have been ridiculous in the 1980s.
Modern resin printers rely on high-resolution monochrome LCD displays. That requires cheap LCDs (only remotely viable after 1990+) as well as enormous quantities of embedded RAM (4K monochrome takes almost 1MiB of RAM which was half the total memory of Powerbook 100, for example).
And modern printers rely on high-power UV LED sources to create uniform flux. Blue+ wavelength LEDs we're a decades long research task.
Revolutionary technologies appear when a series of engineering barriers drop that allow a synthesis of ideas.
The printing press is a good example. Lots of people talk about how the Chinese and the Muslims had the printing press, but that wasn't enough. The printing press needed engineering in paper, inks, moveable type, eyeglasses, an alphabet, etc. before it could take off.
Everything about 3D printing seems to be basically free of any kind of nonsense. Simple, highly reliable hardware (Sometimes you get a clog or something but nothing really fails badly for a very long time), made of cheap commodity parts, with software constantly being pushed to the limit of what's possible.
So many other hobbies feel like they're just excuses to bikeshed or gear collect, or they rapidly become gear collecting hobbies, sometimes leading to some disappointment in yourself when you see the hoard you never use.
Plus, it's repeatable, so you don't have to build daily routines around something irreplaceable. Some people enjoy that, but it doesn't fit well in the high tech mindset where anything that isn't repeatable feels like a liability, especially if managing physical objects and keeping track of your stuff is already a major source of stress.
Files don't wear out either, so it's not like software, where you assume it will likely need maintenance at some point and could stop working in a system update at an inconvenient time.
It also doesn't need much space or expensive equipment, and doesn't take so long to learn that us modern screen addicts would probably just give up before making progress.
They’re not complex, just easily taken apart and meant to be repaired by humans. The software isn’t particularly complex either, the reason for their surge recently was due to patents expiring for additive manufacturing. https://futurism.com/expiring-patents-set-to-improve-3d-worl...
Yeah, I suppose the software to control the printer is the relatively straightforward bit, the complex part is the software that slices the model and converts it into an efficient set of G-code commands for the printer. (That and the software used to create 3D models to begin with...)
That isn’t complex either. There was no reason besides patents that 3D printing could have been a reality decades ago. Simple math is all you need and gcode isn’t just 3D printing it’s also for CNC, something that was able to be done around that time.
While 3d printers aren't necessarily complicated they are fun to watch. They are like an inside-out machine. Most machines are hidden in some sort of casing or under a hood. 3d printers are exposed, so you are able watch the gears spin, belts turn, and the print head extrude.
