But why is the smaller one locked into the bigger one? Link didn't work for me. Is the smaller one the actual firing weapon and the type 2 is just a bigger battery?
^^^ Evidently so. Without a Type One attached, the Type Two isn't a working phaser. Correct? It seems the Type One is the essential part, and the Type Two adds more battery power and maybe greater range and finer setting controls and such.
OK, screw the link. I added 2 images to my original post. The "handle" has it's own beam emitter, so I'm not sure why you would need to put the small Type 1 in there from that perspective.
Think of the beam emitter on the type 2 as a barrel extension. Though, I always wondered what advantage there is to having the type 2 require a type 1 to be inserted in the first place. Why not just have a complete pistol? I mean, what good is the type 2 without a type 1? What are you going to do with it if you've lost the type 1?
Also that drawing is wrong in the descriptions of the controls on the type-I: the actual trigger was a firing stud on the bottom of the prop. The area marked "trigger" in this drawing was actually an acrylic cylinder which was meant to represent a small screen that was used like a scope or a sight. It was rolled up into place using the wheel marked "power control" on this drawing. All of this is correctly represented on the Art Asylum phaser toy. In fact, the only thing I would have liked to have seen on the toy that there isn't a removable power pack/grip as was seen on "The Omega Glory." The Type-II is all just one type. Oh well, it's still a darn fine prop/toy. --Alex
Makes good sense. ...Or then the doodad that creates the actual death ray is an expensive piece of equipment, and it makes more sense to build boosters to the Type One guns than to build separate guns with separate doodads. We never saw a Type Two fire without the Type One attached, either in TOS or in ST3-4 where a comparable but slightly modified gun was in use. The competing phaser design from ST:TMP and ST2 supposedly featured a separable smaller section, too, but this in turn apparently was never used separately. And the phaser from ST 5-6 did not appear to feature a separable smaller "inner gun": the prop did feature separate "power clips" and a curious thumbnail-sized component inside the sliding "barrel cover", but neither of these looked much like a separate weapon. Of course, none of these weapons were explicated as "Type Two" or "Type One" or anything... Timo Saloniemi
Nope, the grid like area forward of the correctly marked trigger was a "pop up" video screen/aiming device. While never used on screen (and therefor non-canon) the hero prop versions of the type one did have the pop up screen. I'll see if I can find a picture of it up in my collection.
Still doesn't seem to me to make sense, that a bigger version would have to have the smaller one to work.
Actually, the "correctly marked trigger", is indeed incorrectly marked. The trigger is a button on the bottom. What looks to you like a trigger is the roll up sight. It is as seen on this replica of the phaser I hero prop: (Apologies to whoever took this picture in the first place, I didn't actually put any credit on it and now I'm not sure who did it... sorry) You'll notice that the acrylic cylinder is, in fact, a half circle in section. When in it's rolled down position, the flat part of it is flush with the top surface of the phaser-I but it does extend past the grill. It's this extension which Franz Joseph erroneously labeled as the trigger in the original Technical Manual and it has stuck with us ever since. Recall that he didn't have access to any actual props, his research was mainly restricted to film frames mounted as slides from the Franklin Mint and pictures in the Making of Star Trek. (In fact a close comparison between the TM drawings and the MoST photos shows that he misinterpreted some of the shadows as photographed in MoST as the true shape of the prop itself. It's subtle, but clear when you really study it.) Anyhow, I hope we're on the same page now. --Alex
I'm pretty sure that crosshair thing is on the rifle and didn't flip-up on the TOS version. The TNG rifle had one that flipped-up.
No, the TOS one had a clear acrylic half cylinder that popped up as a supposed video sight. If you don't believe me, or the guy who made that one I posted above, how about we have Matt Jefferies explain it. A quick google search turned up his drawing that was used to build the hero prop. It also is included in the book Star Trek Sketchbook. I don't want to bother trying to get a good scan of the book, so I annotated the blurry pick I found on the web with what the callouts say from the very legible version in the book. You see here that the "closed sight screen" was what FJ mistook as a trigger button. As is clearly labeled on this drawing, the actual trigger is a button on the lower surface of the phaser. The only difference between this drawing and how it was actually built is that the "illuminated push buttons" were replaced with a settings wheel the slide control to rotate up the sight screen was instead built as a wheel also instead of just a slider. Also, the "forward facing louvers" were omitted. So here it is... I've labeled it just like Jefferies did, even leaving out a parenthesis he left out. Where the letters aren't legible, I've used an asterisk to let you know a letter is visible at this part, but I can't really make it out. And yes, the TNG one did have the flip up crosshairs on it. The WNMHGB rifle version had some sort of antenna on top, not a crosshairs as such. But on the old Phaser I, this was intended to simulate a screen. And, no, I do not believe this feature was ever shown on-screen. But it was on the props as built. --Alex
Here's a screencap from A Private Little War showing the raised screen: http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x19hd/aprivatelittlewarhd0489.jpg. It's the third pic on the third row of http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/thumbnails.php?album=47&page=17.
...We might speculate that the emerging transparent block is not so much a "sight" as it is a "display" that assists in mode selecting. After all, our heroes basically never take aim in a fashion that would allow this block to assist - but in this picture, McCoy is using the phaser in a rare "light my fire" mode rather than the more usual kill, stun or make-vanish. Timo Saloniemi
Could be. All I know is what Matt wrote on his drawing. It seems to me that phasers fire often hits it's target without being directly pointed at it. Help me out it I'm misremembering something, but do our heroes ever miss a phaser shot? Seems to me that the weapon has it's own targeting computer that makes sure the beam hits a valid target, usually a person. Maybe it hits the person closest to the center of the axis of the phaser so aiming when there are multiple targets is important. The sight screen could be how you'd select a target (or at least see what the phaser thinks is the target) before you hit the firing stud. There's no reason we can't assume it's just a mode select display, but I like it being a scope for several reasons. First, it complies with Jefferies design. Second, the forward end of the phaser I has a clear window for the sight which corresponds to another clear window on the pistol body which suggests that a through-line is indeed there, which makes sense in a LOS way of thinking. YMMV --Alex
^^No reason it can't be both? But I think the sighting feature would be used on the phaser II primarily, since your hand won't get in the way, and the phaser II is designed for longer range anyway? On a related note, I wonder if Jefferies originally intended for the phaser I to be turned “upside down” when being fired, making pressing the trigger stud easier by using your thumb instead of your fingers; just a thought?
The purpose of the detachable type 1 unit is simply the 60's mindset of cool interlocking futuristic props. I love Trek, but the debates over science do get silly at times when a lot of times modern tech has surpassed Trek tech over the last 40 years. :P