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Radio comes to mind. All the physical pieces to make a working, if extremely limited and inefficient, radio communications system were there since forever. People knew how to make electric current since ancient times. An antenna is just a piece of twisted metal (and in a pinch, almost anything can work as an antenna). But to get from that to a wireless telegraph, you'd either need a lot of dumb luck, or some understanding of how electricity and magnetism behave.


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