Quote:
Originally Posted by billdan
Remember the old Dick Tracy comic books that started in 1931 and introduced his wrist watch communicator in 1946 and in 1964 became a 2-way wrist watch TV communicator.
According to Wiki it inspired Martin Cooper's invention of the smartphone, and may have inspired later smartwatches.
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Because of how the Dick Tracy wrist watch communicators were operated, when the sequel TV series to TOS was being planned, as an advancement to the TOS Communicator, a Wrist Communicator was devised. Its operation method needed to be changed so as to not infringe on the Dick Tracy copyrights. The Star Trek Wrist Communicator was first seen in Star Trek The Motion Picture.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki...nd_early_films
As for the Dick Tracy communicator inspiring real world products, There's the Seiko TV Watch of 1982 to 1984.
http://www.guenthoer.de/e-tvwatch.htm