Is it time to reopen technology’s cold cases?

One of the staples of crime drama is the ‘cold-case squad’. This allows programme-makers to add period detail to the scenes set in the past, while the present-day scenes can show implausibly attractive forensic scientists hunting for clues in a creepy location such as a long-abandoned children’s home (an activity obviously best performed during the hours of darkness by two people who separate in mid-search for no apparent reason).

I have often wondered whether it is worth establishing a cold-case squad for technology and science, to investigate those lines of inquiry that went cold 50 years ago but would now repay further investigation; or inventions that suffered from a miscarriage of justice. I was recently talking to a reader about the Microwriter — a six-button typing device that allowed you to type with one hand at astonishing speed. It was invented in the 1970s and failed. Might it be worth bringing it back?

As with criminal investigations, scientific and technological lines of inquiry are prone to get sidetracked or hit dead ends.