# How would technology have developed in a world without Television? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 30, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-technology-have-developed-in-a-world-without-television/684886 "2014-03-30T06:17:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Earth001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a6a055/32.png) [@Earth001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earth001)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-technology-have-developed-in-a-world-without-television/684886/1 "2014-03-30T06:17:53Z")
If television had never been invented or was never around how do you think life would be like today? What would the world of 2014 be like now if there was no television around? ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-technology-have-developed-in-a-world-without-television/684886/2 "2014-03-31T23:01:10Z")
When marketable television was established radio and the movies were developing rapidly. Telephone was well established. So we might have just skipped over television and went to mobile phones and then smart phones. One sort of gets the feel that this may have happened in some remote, so called third world, countries. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-technology-have-developed-in-a-world-without-television/684886/3 "2014-04-01T00:15:03Z")
Information would be more text-based…and based on other forms of images. Lots more photographs in our news. News programs on radio would come with photo supplements. Computers would still exist, but without data display screens, they’d be arcane and hard to work with. You might get as far as rows of indicator lights, or even Nixie tubes, to display data, but without TV, you’d never have the CRT display. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-technology-have-developed-in-a-world-without-television/684886/4 "2014-04-01T01:07:17Z")
what would have caused tv to not be invented? radio not invented? CRT not invented? both causes would have massive changes beyond the visual information/entertainment box. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-technology-have-developed-in-a-world-without-television/684886/5 "2014-04-01T02:55:06Z")
Without cathode ray tubes, your only visual monitors would be analog needle meters, to be replaced by analog numerical light screens (figure 8), followed by lcd. But the lcd will give you a tv. So barring that as well, you’ll be stuck with light screens and printers. Don’t know how you can examine a computer read-out without something akin to a tv. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-technology-have-developed-in-a-world-without-television/684886/6 "2014-04-01T13:01:08Z")
It’s a fictional aside, but I don’t believe Battlestar Galactica reboot universe had video. They had “wireless” which was poor quality audio, but no television or video communication that I can recall. Not having radio meant they didn’t have “radar,” either… it was “directional ranging and distance” - DRADIS.