Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x04 - "Memento Mori"

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Again there are different degrees of AI. In Star Trek there is the duotronic, multitronic and then the most advanced the positronic. Again is Alexa the same as the tos computer?

Now you are conflating hardware with software.
Duotronic and multitronic, afaik, are wholesale made up words. Based purely on the notion of more tronic = better tronic.
Where positronic is implied to mean something along the lines of like electronic but positively charged instead of negatively, otherwise the exact same. Positrons are a real world thing in physics.
Since positronic matrices and brains are always mentioned in the context of androids or artificial brains (Bareil) one can assume that creating a synthetic neuron with positively charged action potential must have advantageous properties.
In this case the AI might be indeed hardware based and an emerging property instead of programmed. Or at least a mixture of emergent and programmed since Data also has written code and subroutines.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Now you are conflating hardware with software.
Duotronic and multitronic, afaik, are wholesale made up words. Based purely on the notion of more tronic = better tronic.
Where positronic is implied to mean something along the lines of like electronic but positively charged instead of negatively, otherwise the exact same. Positrons are a real world thing in physics.
Since positronic matrices and brains are always mentioned in the context of androids or artificial brains (Bareil) one can assume that creating a synthetic neuron with positively charged action potential must have advantageous properties.
In this case the AI might be indeed hardware based and an emerging property instead of programmed. Or at least a mixture of emergent and programmed since Data also has written code and subroutines.

I just read it from some trek manual long time ago. They had the three listed.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm willing to bend a few visual rules here and there after 53 years then I don't know why this argument is still a thing.

Because it's habit. I think it stems from the old days of being maligned for liking Star Trek. So it just causes knee jerk argumentation because fans, myself included, are very defensive of their favorite franchise. It's not logical.

 

[Mr Awe]

We're still doing this? I adore and will defend almost any aesthetic aspect of TOS and still wish the SNW Enterprise looked more like the TOS version but I can't defend a few of the computer interfaces that don't even have screens of any kind. If I'm willing to bend a few visual rules here and there after 53 years then I don't know why this argument is still a thing.

It's interesting when you look at the TOS bridge workstations and evaluate them as actual workstations. You quickly realize that they're not practical!

As you say, there are virtually no screens to display information. Apparently, you need to decode the flashing lights. Spock might have a screen in his viewing thing, but that seems to be it outside the front viewscreen. There are also very few ways to input information. The flashing lights are not buttons. There are some toggle switches and push buttons, but that would just switch things on and off. Binary. No keyboards. No touchscreens. Just not a lot of useful information going in and out of those workstations!

 

[cooleddie74]

I think the 23rd century progression of Starfleet computer technolgy - at least that developed or influenced by the wunderkind Richard Daystrom - goes from comptronic systems to duotronics in 2243 which were then rolled out across the fleet in coming years, not the least of which the new Constitution-class starships. Multitronics was Daystrom's attempt to make the 25-year-old technology on ships like the Enterprise obsolete by developing a processing system whereby data could be more efficiently processed and transmitted using circuitry patterned after Daystrom's own memory engrams using scans of his own brain. M5 was supposed to be the first "independent thinking computer" in Starfleet and be capable of running an entire starship using a skeleton crew.

One can see multitronics as the immediate ancestor of bioneural gel pack technology introduced around 2370. Both use circuitry mimicking humanoid brain networks and synapses.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

The only thing I find absurd is certain language diminishing enjoyment.

You know, certain instances stood out to me, but they didn’t bother me. “For the win” and “Aces” jarred, but ultimately I’m fine with it. I can however understand how others may have a problem.

But then I saw someone say they never thought they’d hear “I got you…” on Star Trek and… well, WTF?

Nitpickers gonna find something to pick if they can’t find enough nits I guess.

Edit - Also I wish I’d never mentioned the computer and chunka-chunka-chunka…

 

[fireproof78]

Nitpickers gonna find something to pick if they can’t find enough nits I guess.

Indeed. It has become a raison d'etre.

 

[Mr Awe]

Edit - Also I wish I’d never mentioned the computer and chunka-chunka-chunka…

But I love the chunka chunks! I can picture some lower ranked person forced to sit behind the console turning a hand crank to get the computer to spit out the answer.

More seriously, it's an audible signal that the computer is working. I've heard modern takes on it too. I've called up those automated phone systems about an account. After entering my information using the phone keys, the system says it's looking up my information and then there are some muted beeps and boops to indicate that it's searching before giving me the information.

Same thing really as "Working!" Followed by the chunka chunkas!

 

[Mudd]

Of all the complaints I’ve seen on the board over the years I hardly think the consideration of linguistics in different time periods qualifies as “absurd”.

Complaining about colloquial language is complaining about nothing, and it's tiresome.

 

[cooleddie74]

Even in the ENT update of the TOS Era Defiant there was a more muffled "chunka-chunk" sound when Mirror Archer and Hoshi were using the ship's library computer system.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Yeah but we've already established that you don't know anything about computers.

You're wrong. Plain and simple.

Watch the episode "Wolf in the Fold". When they are investigating the murders Spock is conversing with the computer to give a hypothetical extrapolation if an entity such as Redjak could exist. He's having a actual conversation with the computer. The computer gives him a extrapolation. If you honestly think that somethingike that is more primitive than Akexa or that we can get this kind of a hypothesis from a computer by a discussion with it than I'll give you the win. If we have computers that can converse like that I really want one. I suppose we do since our computers are far advanced than TOS. Give me a link to one so I can buy it. I really would like some advice from a computer for some real world problems I have.

 

[fireproof78]

Chunka chunk reminds me of old printers. It does not scream The Future!

 

[cooleddie74]

In-universe the TOS computers were supposed to be a lot more advanced than anything we have today. The problem is the interfaces were designed in 1964, 1965 and 1966 and some of them do not hold up well after fifty years. And I'm about as passionate and "This is My Trek" when it comes to TOS as anyone here could be. But a couple of those breadbox desktop computers without any screen readouts just don't work anymore, not unless you add a screen to it.

 

[Mr Awe]

Chunka chunk reminds me of old printers. It does not scream The Future!

Not it does not! In the 80s I had a dot matrix printer. It was so loud that I couldn't print while watching TV because it would drown out the TV!

 

[Richard S. Ta]

But I love the chunka chunks! I can picture some lower ranked person forced to sit behind the console turning a hand crank to get the computer to spit out the answer.

I wish TNG computers made a dial-up modem noise when they were thinking.

Even in the ENT update of the TOS Era Defiant there was a more muffled "chunka-chunk" sound when Mirror Archer and Hoshi were using the ship's library computer system.

Chunka chunk reminds me of old printers. It does not scream The Future!

I have my own nit to pick with all three of the quoted posters. It is chunka-chunka-chunka, not chunka-chunk.

You are violating the canon of the thread.

 

[cooleddie74]

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[fireproof78]

I wish TNG computers made a dial-up modem noise when they were thinking.





I have my own nit to pick with all three of the quoted posters. It is chunka-chunka-chunka, not chunka-chunk.

You are violating the canon of the thread.

Someone has too

 

[GNDN18]

But a couple of those breadbox desktop computers without any screen readouts just don't work anymore, not unless you add a screen to it.

Graphical user interfaces predated Trek by a year or so, but were rarely used. Even in the early 1980s some people questioned the usefulness of GUIs.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

You know, from this thread then before 10am on a Sunday morning I’ve been able to have various laughs and learn stuff about computers.

I love this community. That includes you, @Pubert .

 

[cooleddie74]

The REAL futuristic computer technology is the technology we made along the way.