How would you re-imagine the TOS Communicators?

[USS Triumphant]

Cary L. Brown:

Your programming analogy is flawed. Simpler IS a matter of perspective, even there. I'll explain.

There was a certain degree of complexity in developing the personal computer in the first place. Then, in developing a file system and disk operating system and command-line programming languages. Then, in developing GUIs and visually-oriented programming languages. Not to mention all the steps needed to develop ARPAnet into the World Wide Web we know today. Were you to look at all of the actual code involved in executing a simple "Hello World" website at every level of its operation, on both the server and the machine viewing it, it is incredibly complex. But from my perspective as the page author, I typed a couple of lines into Notepad and saved them to the right location, and from the viewers perspective, they clicked a button. Simple.

If I had to build a comm system like I described before, now, it would be pretty complex. There would be all sorts of technologies that would have to be developed from the ground up, and dangerous surgeries to be performed on the recipients once that was done. In the 23rd century shown on Star Trek, transporters and nanites have been developed, and by TNG, they are routinely used for surgeries, eliminating almost all of the pain, danger, and hassle of that part of the process. The comm tech already exists and is routinely employed, and ditto for the extremely dense and tiny power tech used to power it. Having everything inserted, from the comm system itself to the nerve taps for subvocalization and the optic system would be .... simple. Something the (incredibly complicated through it's history of development, but now working very intuitively off of simple vocal commands) ship's computer could probably even do without anything more than being asked to do so.

Perhaps you simply have an objection to mutilation... you want to keep yourself "human," in other words, instead of becoming a "wetware" component of some mechanism.

This is the only valid point I've seen you bring in objection, and it is one that I have considered before. Some people may be disinclined to have this done for historical or religious reasons, or just a personal feeling of discomfort.

But those people probably also would not be in Starfleet, much as it is almost unheard of to have Rastafarians in the United States military, since they are utter pacifists who smoke pot as part of their religious practice.

 

[sojourner]

Cary,
Your response with it's implied and outright insults has no place in this conversation.

And as USS Triumphant pointed out, KISS is most definitely a matter of perspective. I certainly don't see anyone programming with punch cards anymore, but at one time it was the simplest way. I don't see many wars fought with bows and arrows anymore, but once again, at one time it was the simplest and most efficient way of killing. You are trying to apply 21st century limits on 23rd century technology to come up with your design needs. Try to think from a 23rd century perspective of what would be "KISS" and would also fill the requirements of that time. Not today's requirements.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Cary,
Your response with it's implied and outright insults has no place in this conversation.

And as USS Triumphant pointed out, KISS is most definitely a matter of perspective. I certainly don't see anyone programming with punch cards anymore, but at one time it was the simplest way. I don't see many wars fought with bows and arrows anymore, but once again, at one time it was the simplest and most efficient way of killing. You are trying to apply 21st century limits on 23rd century technology to come up with your design needs. Try to think from a 23rd century perspective of what would be "KISS" and would also fill the requirements of that time. Not today's requirements.

And at the same time, the responses by you and "Triumphant" have been at least as insulting. You can't play it one way and require the responses to be "nicer." I get so sick of that approach, but it seems to be very common on here.

You keep saying that I'm thinking "from today's perspective." But I have never talked about the specific technical bits and pieces... I've been talking about the APPROACH.

Simplicity is simplicity. It's not "debatable." It's not "subject to reinterpretation" or to "artistic taste."

You determine what you need the device to do... a functional list. This is not something that suddenly is going to go "out of style" in a couple of years... it's not a VOGUE, it's COMMON SENSE.

In this case...

It needs to have be able to transmit and receive, without external support devices, from a planetary surface to another similar object in a high orbit.

It needs to be secure, so that emissions from the device cannot easily be traced or intercepted. This almost certainly means that it transmits, not in analog, but in encoded microbursts, possibly using some form of frequency-hopping algorithm so no two microbursts are on the same frequency.

It needs to be easy to use... which means verbal interaction, almost entirely. "Voice dialing" to preprogrammed "paired" users, for instance, is a given.

Depending on the situation, I'm not sure that visual communication is really necessary, but it should be an option at least. It seems to me that in most cases, the primary attention of the user should be on their surroundings and situation, not on the picture on the display screen, however.

It needs to be hardened and robust, so that it will be resistant to physical damaged due to impact or shock.

It needs to be "hardened" to make it very difficult (ideally impossible) to interfere with externally (which any "wireless network" will inevitably be vulnerable to).

If you DID incorporate that "wireless subcomponent network" idea, you'd have to have that also be frequency-hopping, micropulse communication between every single component. And you could never truly mask the emissions signature of such a device, could you?

It needs to be simple... no "keypad controls" or six-level-deep menu systems like modern cell phones tend to have in order to accomplish important tasks. Things like "send an emergency signal" should be accomplished by a single operation. Things like going to a different "frequency hopping algorithm" or a different encryption algorithm should be easy to pick with only one level down from the "top menu" and with only one hand, in a reliable and intuitive way. And it needs direct "volume" controls which incorporate an "instant mute" feature. Anything else, more complicated, should either be preprogrammed at the base station or accessible through deeper (and harder to access) menu levels.

What is gained by having it be "all visual, all the time?" Is there anything to really be gained by that? No... not really.

What is gained by having it be implanted? Well, it can't be dropped easily, sure, but otherwise... nothing I can see. If you have it implanted, and you're captured... this really isn't going to keep them from confiscating the device, is it? But in that case they can confiscate it without severing your arm in the process... which I consider an advantage, not a drawback. Plus, if it manfunctions (say, by a gorn setting up a feedback loop in it) it can't easily be tossed aside if necessary... or secreted away someplace where it can't be found, for that matter.

What does it need to do? Come up with a list of "must have" features. Not "wouldn't this be kewl" features!

Despite your DAMNED ANNOYING AND OFFENSIVE repeated claims that I'm somehow being "hidebound 20th century" in my thinking, I'm doing no such thing. I'm just being practical. It's the guys who keep coming up with "wow, we should implant it in our eyelids and have it flash multicolors all the time" type suggestions who are being impractical and irrational.

"KISS" is not a "matter of perspective. It's an axiom. A guide to how to avoid royally screwing things up. People have ignored this since time immemorial, sure... and it almost always ends up in disaster.

Try running through an FMEA or a fault tree analysis or any other NON-TECHNOLOGY-SPECIFIC thought-exercise, and then tell me that "additional complexity can be simpler." That's like saying that sometimes 2+2 equals four, but other times it can equal six hundred. Additional complexity ALWAYS means "more susceptible to failure" with any given technology.

 

[sojourner]

Cary,
You do know that using all caps is in essence yelling in text?
I never actually made any suggestions on what the com systems should be. I merely stated that your "KISS" idea might not fit in with the 23rd century idea of "KISS".
I could say more about your response, but I am afraid you are just getting needlessly worked up.

 

[Ptrope]

Okay, guys, calm down - and remember that this is the art forum, not TrekTech - if it ain't about art, the thread will be moved.

As for the netiquette, please take advantage of the easy-to-use controls for bold and italics - CAPS aren't necessary simply to make a point.

 

[USS Triumphant]

And at the same time, the responses by you and "Triumphant" have been at least as insulting.

I never claimed to be nice, nor was I attempting to insult anyone. I merely stated what I considered to be a logical response to your argument.

I will say that I don't appreciate the sarcasm directed at my screenname, and that even as a new poster here, I already know that we're supposed to put other people's screennames in bold.

I continue to believe that aspects of your position on this subject are incorrect, but I don't really care enough to continue a debate with someone who takes your tenor in doing it. Good day, sir.

 

[Psion]

Circular screens make perfect sense in some situations... rectangular screens are just "what you're used to."

Every time I see a non-rectangular display in SF, I flinch, because I worry about the wasted space and presentation of data. Frankly, the only use I can conceive of for a circular display on this scale is for polar-coordinate data based on angle and radius ... radar, for example. Is there any other application where a circular display is useful? And do the uses for a circular display outnumber or outweigh the uses for rectangular presentation?

I wonder about the intent of the circular mechanism in the original communicator. I'd be convinced no one ever thought of it as anything other than a speaker except for one little detail: the use of watch mechanisms to drive that moire pattern. I don't know if that was just to make a cool grill pattern that looked interesting on TV, or if the designer thought of it as indicating more advanced technology.

Okay, guys, calm down - and remember that this is the art forum, not TrekTech - if it ain't about art, the thread will be moved.

Please forgive me for disagreeing, but I think it's vitally important to nail down function -- the tech -- before setting pencil to graph paper in this instance. Function should, in a rational design, dictate form and that's an exciting component of Trek props. Of course, the fun's gonna come from disagreement about what two and a half more centuries of technological progress will do to that function/form balance.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Circular screens make perfect sense in some situations... rectangular screens are just "what you're used to."

Every time I see a non-rectangular display in SF, I flinch, because I worry about the wasted space and presentation of data. Frankly, the only use I can conceive of for a circular display on this scale is for polar-coordinate data based on angle and radius ... radar, for example. Is there any other application where a circular display is useful? And do the uses for a circular display outnumber or outweigh the uses for rectangular presentation?

I wonder about the intent of the circular mechanism in the original communicator. I'd be convinced no one ever thought of it as anything other than a speaker except for one little detail: the use of watch mechanisms to drive that moire pattern. I don't know if that was just to make a cool grill pattern that looked interesting on TV, or if the designer thought of it as indicating more advanced technology.

There are certainly situations where circular displays make perfect sense. You gave one... but there are many others.

Your argument against is based upon the idea of text-based display of data. And if the communicator was going to be used to display data in that form, I think your argument would be 100% correct. (This is why I'd argue that the tricorder needs a rectangular display for that purpose.)

But if you're measuring ENERGY, for example... (the radar example is just one, but it's a good one) a polar system makes absolute sense for data display. The communicator is, after all, a broadcasting device and a receiving device... and I've always assumed that the circular moire pattern represented the received electromagnetic signals exactly as they'd be received... based upon a common distance from the device itself.

For visual (ie, "imagery-based") communication... round displays work perfectly well, too. Think of the image you observe through a telescope eyepiece, or a binocular eyepiece, or night-vision goggles... all are round displays. And they are perfectly natural, aren't they? Because the eye's iris is also circular. If you close one eye and look in one direction, your field of vision is essentially circular... not rectangular.

The rectangular-display paradigm isn't, and shouldn't, be a universal constant. And I think Wah Chang, smart guy that he was, understood that. That's why he gave the communicator only a circular display, while he gave the tricorder both a circular and a rectangular one. Because the tricorder both measures unprocessed energy patterns (the round display) and also outputs this reduced to readable data (the rectangular display).

I never believed... not for one second... that the circular bit on the communicator was a speaker/microphone. Because the one time we REALLY saw it up-close... it was when Kirk was using it to create a sonic resonance in a rock structure. It was just so clearly intended to be a display that even though I was only two at the time I first saw that, I understood what it was... it was a picture representing the sound waves. As I've gotten older and more seasoned, I've never seen any reason to accept any other explanation. And other than from reading the FJ book, has anyone else? I doubt it.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

A wrist-watch like device like in TMP sounds best now that I think about it.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think I'm with Cary on this one. We're not talking about the latest product from Verizon, it's a piece of military field equipment, which not only means that it was built with a certain list of requirements, and only those requirements (in this case, voice communication and location beacon for the transporter), but it was also built by the lowest bidder. No extra bells or whistles, and any style points are purely coincidental.

Plus, there are certain times where you don't want to be wired. Like bowel movements or sexual encounters. Easy to avoid with a hand held device, not so easy with a surgical implant.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

A wrist-watch like device like in TMP sounds best now that I think about it.

Except for the power-consumption issue associated with surface-to-orbit unassisted transmission... I don't disagree.

FYI... on that note, check THIS out...

http://www.altafsayani.com/2008/12/29/first-3g-wrist-phone-by-lg/

Realize that the POWER in this device is very low... it's useless unless it's supplemented by a massive infrastructure (as all cell phones are). But it's not an unreasonable approach. Something like what Clark Terrell and Pavel Chekov wore in ST-II would be more reasonable for a relatively-long-range device, though.

Still.. a handheld device is good too. Having stuff strapped on isn't always the best option.

 

[Wingsley]

Okay, guys, calm down - and remember that this is the art forum, not TrekTech - if it ain't about art, the thread will be moved.

As for the netiquette, please take advantage of the easy-to-use controls for bold and italics - CAPS aren't necessary simply to make a point.

Well said.

I was expecting people to use their imagination and create artwork to depict their vision of what communicators could be, or at least type in a description.

That having been said, I can agree/disagree with the various "schools of thought" being expressed here. I love the TOS talkies, as well as the TMP wrist-radios, and the TNG comm-badges. Each approach has a logic to it that I find reasonable, at least, in the context of each given adventure.

The "Search for Spock" talkies also make a great deal of sense.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Cary L. Brown

Depends on what it's power source is. I mean a phaser can produce enough energy to vaporize a bear-sized creature and it's smaller than many modern handguns.


CuttingEdge100

 

[GodThingFormerly]

A wrist-watch like device like in TMP sounds best now that I think about it.

Except for the power-consumption issue associated with surface-to-orbit unassisted transmission... I don't disagree.

ST:TMP's personal communications system model was directly inspired by Ivan Bekey's 1976 proposal to NASA for a GEO satellite supported wristphone network servicing the continental United States. As for the power requirements of the wristphone's transmitter, the larger the satellite's antenna the less RF power is needed for a successful link (e.g., 100 meter diameter antenna = ~0.1 watt transmitter). Of course, it is safe to assume that the Starfleet wristcom is a "dual-mode" device with both EM and subspace transceivers, and thankfully the energy requirements for subspace communication have never to my knowledge been "canonically" quantified.

TGT

 

[USS Jack Riley]

This is the only valid point I've seen you bring in objection, and it is one that I have considered before. Some people may be disinclined to have this done for historical or religious reasons, or just a personal feeling of discomfort.

But those people probably also would not be in Starfleet, much as it is almost unheard of to have Rastafarians in the United States military, since they are utter pacifists who smoke pot as part of their religious practice.

USS_Triumphant - I am not so sure about this. I have concerns from a security standpoint. If you haven't read the Old Man's War series, I highly recommend it. I will summarize the problem by way of an example in one of the books.

One of the new communications devices in this series is hardwired into all military personnel - the BrainPal. It allows for instantaneous communications between people (without talking out loud) and data transfer.

[Minor spoiler alert]

In one of the books, an alien race figures out how to turn them off. The Special Forces, who are highly dependent on the BrainPal interactions, actually go insane as a result of this little glitch.

[End spoiler]

Why mention this? How hard would it be to turn the BrainPal's from humanity's best communication device (that, in turn, allows humanity to become an excellent fighting force) into a weapon against humanity. If you can turn off the BrainPal (which is hardwired to the brain), why not just activate a virus/trojan horse into the BrainPal network that turns the soliders against each other and the rest of humanity?

If handheld equipment goes down, you simply throw it to the ground in disgust and watch the network go down. You can still plod along, albeit with older tools than those to which you are accustomed.

If you are hardwired into the system, you lose control and cannot turn yourself off. Case in point - the TNG episode that is a ripoff of The Manchurian Candidate and the TNG movide Generations. In both cases Geordi's optical implants were used against Geordi's wishes. In the TNG episode, he was unwittingly turned into an assasin. In Generations, Lursa and Betor (sp?) were able to use his VISOR to obtain the Enterprise's shield frequency and destroy her.

Just some food for though on the implant issue.

 

[USS Triumphant]

USS_Triumphant - I am not so sure about this. I have concerns from a security standpoint.

This is possibly a valid point, and I didn't say there weren't others that could be made, just that they hadn't been.

The design I had in mind only allows for an outbound tap on two nerve clusters - optic and vocal. No information is allowed to flow into them, and the thing that prevents this is a mechanical breaker that would disable the connection if anything did pass the wrong way. And admittedly, an enemy could potentially use this to spy on you or disable communications. BUT, they could do that with regular communications, too. The only new element would be the optical data - but whether or not to send that would be entirely controlled by the user, and to get around that, the enemy would have to have physical access.

If your enemy has physical access to your optic nerve, you're already pretty screwed.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

USS_Triumphant - I am not so sure about this. I have concerns from a security standpoint.

This is possibly a valid point, and I didn't say there weren't others that could be made, just that they hadn't been.

Except, of course, that I'd already made that point... though not with the great example Jack gave us.

The design I had in mind only allows for an outbound tap on two nerve clusters - optic and vocal. No information is allowed to flow into them, and the thing that prevents this is a mechanical breaker that would disable the connection if anything did pass the wrong way. And admittedly, an enemy could potentially use this to spy on you or disable communications. BUT, they could do that with regular communications, too. The only new element would be the optical data - but whether or not to send that would be entirely controlled by the user, and to get around that, the enemy would have to have physical access.

If your enemy has physical access to your optic nerve, you're already pretty screwed.

But they don't have to have physical access. You've just created a device which is permanently attached to the user, removable only by surgury. And even though you may believe that you could have 100%-reliable cybernetic components, NEURONS can't be reprogrammed in that fashion. It's a huge risk no matter how you approach it.

And what happens if the enemy figures out how to shut the network down? What happens then? Well, if the device isn't implanted, you just make new devices and hand them out... something which (300 years into our future) seems like it would be fairly trivial. Perhaps its as simple as popping open the communicator case and replacing a single chip, and the enemy's hack no longer works.

If it's implanted, however... doing this is a matter of surgery. The person being "fixed" has to be taken off line during the implementation of the fix. It may not be as lengthy as it would be today (nanotechnology, etc) but it would still be mandatory downtime. And the more "hardwired into the body" this is, the more complex the operation would be, as well as the after-surgery acclimatization period.

Unless we cease being humans... I just don't see this as an option.

 

[USS Jack Riley]

Except, of course, that I'd already made that point... though not with the great example Jack gave us.

Sorry about that Cary. I have been out of touch for 2 weeks and was only skimming posts and didn't see anything relating to security issues (energy and batteries - yes, security - no). Didn't mean to butt in on ya.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled thread.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Except, of course, that I'd already made that point... though not with the great example Jack gave us.

Sorry about that Cary. I have been out of touch for 2 weeks and was only skimming posts and didn't see anything relating to security issues (energy and batteries - yes, security - no). Didn't mean to butt in on ya.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled thread.

Not at all, Jack... I enjoyed your example. I was just pointing out that this comment from "Triumphant" was in error:

This is possibly a valid point, and I didn't say there weren't others that could be made, just that they hadn't been

And, of course, it had been made. However, as I said, you gave a really terrific example of just HOW it could be a security issue, which I hadn't even touched on. And your example, I think, drove the point home more effectively than my original mention of "security" (without further expansion of the point) had.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Except, of course, that I'd already made that point... though not with the great example Jack gave us.

Sorry. I missed that part. But since USS Jack Riley did, too, I'm going to go ahead and agree that his example was better.

BTW - my screenname is not to indicate that I am triumphant or anything like that, it is the class ship for the Enterprise in my fanfic. You don't need to stick quotes around it. If you'd rather, call me Tri - since I seem to be Tri-ing your patience.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled thread.

Quick side question: what class of ship are you?