In the 80's the Americans thought that the Russians were backwards to be still using vacuum tubes in their military vehicles. Later they found out that they were being used because they are more tolerant to EMP from a nuclear blast.

>This is false. There absolutely are people that fall back on older tools when fancy tools fail. >They other week I finished putting holes in fence posts with a bit and brace as there was no fuel for the generator to run corded electric drills and the rechargable batteries were dead.

It depends on the task though. If you are in a similar scenario as with your fence posts and want to edit computer programs, you can't. (Not even with xkcd's magnetic needle and a steady hand). ;-)

As technology marches on it seems inevitable that we will get increasingly large and frequent knowledge gaps. Otherwise progress would stop - we need the giant shoulders to stand on.

How many people in the world can recreate a ASML lithography machine vs how many people are surviving by doing something that requires that machine to exist?