No one doubts the estimable contributions of Star Trek to technology. Long before floppy discs, CD' s, and handheld communicators were actual manufactured devices, their virtual counterparts were established as credible, user friendly, and not at all unusual seen in their context. That combination of friendly tech (by and large) wielded by conscientious people helped establish Trek as one of the few (and I mean few) forward-looking and optimistic science fiction series even to this day.

That such devices were not only realistic but indeed ordinary was pretty much "written into" the show from the beginning. Gene Roddenberry said that for an audience to enjoy a cop show, the officer need not explain how his gun works every time it's used. The utility and operation of a device should be obvious to a casual viewer, as much so as to the characters using them. (Note that the Slaver Weapon looks and operates well, like a weapon. What if they'd found something resembling an eggplant?) Where technology was stretched for dramatic or budgetary reasons - like artificial gravity or the transporter - still the thought was to keep it as grounded as possible in plausible science. Other series could take a clue from that.

Some technical developments seen in Trek were not original, rather they had been staples of Science Fiction for some time. And Trek usually established technology as both ubiquitous and relatively harmless. It's interesting that exceptions to the latter were often cutting edge concepts of the time, like genetic engineering and artificial general intelligence. In "Catspaw" Kirk refers to manufacturing tons of gems; likewise food processors also hint at sophisticated replicator technology most likely related to molecular nanotechnology, yet dire predictions of "gray goo" never threatened the Enterprise.

So what is odd, is not the developments that do appear in the show, but those that don't. The internet is one such example, although one can argue computer networks were always there in the background ("A Taste of Armageddon"). Between now and then, where did email go? And for that matter, from where does subspace radio come? Maybe those two questions answer each other, in some way yet undescribed. That the prognostications made four decades ago preceded the fastest rising technical curve our species has ever seen may be coincidental. Not to diminish credit to anyone for what they guessed right, but it's not too much to think that had email or computer networking been dramatically necessary to a TOS story, we the audience would have been exposed to them first.