Table saw alternatives in the future

[vaking]

I've often wondered if the table saw itself would become obsolete and follow in the footsteps of the Radial Arm Saw. Between a router with a good edge guide and a track saw, is there anything that makes a table saw is essential?

I'm not arguing that these are any safer, just that there is nothing a table saw can do that can't be done by any other means.

I also have thoughts along these lines. I know 4 major types of large saws.
1. Miter saws (CMS or SCMS) excel at cross-cuts, miter cuts, bevel cuts and combinations of above.
2. Band saws are good for rip cuts and curved cuts.
3. Panel saw or track saw is good for sheet products.
4. Table saw is the most universal tool. It can do all of the above except curved cuts but it does not excel at anything. For any specific type of cut there is something better. In other words - it is a swiss army knife of big saws. I believe it is also the most dangerous of big saws.

I believe in the past few years table saw had made less progress than other types of big saws. We got very impressive sliding miter saws that had gained accuracy they did not have before. Panel saws made huge improvements. Modern band saws are looking interesting - they increased capacity while keeping size small for instance.
SawStop is probably the only recent innovation for table saws I can think of. I cannot think of any functional (vs safety) improvement since bessy fence.
It is possible that table saw is becoming less essential.

[phi1l]

I'm pretty sure that a spring or solenoid alone would not retract the blade fast enough to prevent serious injury.
The brake grabs the blade destroying the teeth in order to use the blade's momentum to cause the retraction much more quickly than a spring could do by itself.

It seems like that would be the case, but I just did some BOE calculations & the potential energy in a 50Kg spring is in the same order of magnitude as the kinetic energy of a TS blade. So a spring retraction can not be ruled out on that basis alone. That doesn't mean it is feasible, of course, but it may be possible.