I think the way computers developed is kind of an interesting example of this in the real world. Babbage basically realized the idea of a modern computer, but tried to build a too-complicated 'supercomputer' (40 decimal digit precision!) because he didn't know how incredibly useful a much simpler, more limited computer could be. We had to wait another 75 years and spend an incredible amount of money to develop relay and vacuum-tube supercomputers, before realizing that the idea could be scaled down, and something like a PDP-8 / PLC / microcontroller was incredibly useful for industrial control and, with sufficient cleverness, even do a lot of scientific computing.
I think if you went back in time you could pay some power loom engineers to build you a pretty decent 4-8 bit microcontroller operating at 1-5 Hz (comparable to power looms at the time) and computer-controlled textiles would have paid for the computer revolution 75-100 years ahead of time.
I think if you went back in time you could pay some power loom engineers to build you a pretty decent 4-8 bit microcontroller operating at 1-5 Hz (comparable to power looms at the time) and computer-controlled textiles would have paid for the computer revolution 75-100 years ahead of time.