Is there any technology in TNG that's already outdated?

[Bertie]

All that said, computers in TNG have probably held up better than most 1980s vintage science fiction.

• No tube type monitors; all flat screens. Nailed this one.
• No magnetic or optical removable storage; "chips" instead. Looking pretty good here; Magnetic storage already mostly gone, Blu-Ray will probably be the last optical format; USB drives ("chips") clearly taking over.
• Touch/voice (natural language) interface as opposed to keyboard/mouse. Still, at the very least, a plausible future development, and one that is gaining momentum.
• No command prompt or Mac/Windows style UI. No generic computer form factor — all "devices" of various shapes and sizes. Still a plausible future development, again one gaining momentum with the popularity of powerful computing devices with alternative shapes and UIs (iPhone, XBox 360, Windows Surface, etc.).
• Networking exists but not overly specified in technobabble as to be made obsolete by the Internet. In this case, Trek's vagueness on networking worked to its advantage, as almost no one predicted what would really happen.

 

[Hober Mallow]

All that said, computers in TNG have probably held up better than most 1980s vintage science fiction.

Agreed.

Hell, when it comes to computer technology, even 90s SF shows sometimes missed the mark. In the Alien Nation movie "Millennium," George Francisco boasts of his powerful new futuristic desk computer which allows him to surf the net "at the speed of a thousand megahertz!"

No tube type monitors; all flat screens. Nailed this one.

Well, Picard's desktop screen looked pretty flat back in the day, but my dad's 52" TV is thinner now. Still, Picard's screen very closely resembles my portable DVD player.

There's a line I remember from "The Neutral Zone" which I thought was just crazy the first time I heard it. It was when Data stated that television was a fad that died out by the mid-21st century. No way! I thought. Well, I think Data may yet be proven right. With streaming video, video on demand and the like becoming more and more popular, I'm betting traditional television is on the way out. In a few decades you may be telling your grandkids, "In my day we couldn't watch what we wanted when we wanted. In my day we watched what the station wanted to show us! And if we couldn't make it home in time to watch our favorite show, we missed it!" And you'll sound old. Really old.

 

[darthdave]

i think haveing to manually touch the coms panal is out dated now with wireless hands free tec

 

[Cyke101]

All that said, computers in TNG have probably held up better than most 1980s vintage science fiction.

• No tube type monitors; all flat screens. Nailed this one.

Not really. I don't have a list of episodes, but there are a handful of times where we do see tube-type monitors, sometimes in a starbase and sometimes in a lab. The TNG Nitpicker's Guide made note of these outdated monitors back in the 90s.

However, I pretty much agree with the rest of your post. Monotone computer voices annoyed the living HELL out of me *if* the show was produced in the 80s and 90s! Gimme Majel Barret's mechanical-yet-warmly reassuring delivery every time

Your point about the monitors reminds me of something: once in a while, when showing us something on LCARS, sometimes the monitor's effects were video and 16-bit graphics design engines, as opposed to being slick and done by the FX team. The most vivid memory I have of this is in Rascals, where we see a display of the E-D but done with computer F/X of the time and not the usual methods. It made the graphic look very outdated... which is odd considering the usual (slicker) display of LCARS had been around since Season 1! Clearly it was a design/production choice, but for a brief second, I wondered if Treknology had actually regressed. Little wonder why it's been rarely done since.

 

[RAMA]

Don't forget, while PADDs may be bigger, and some of the "portables" as well in STNG, they may have a hell of a lot more capability than the modern equivalents.

My cell phones in the late 90s were huge, then they got smaller and more capable, but in order to get bigger and more useful screens on them, the iPhone and Blackberrys have gotten bigger again...but of course they can do so much more than my 1997 Motorola cell.

RAMA

 

[Cyke101]

Don't forget, while PADDs may be bigger, and some of the "portables" as well in STNG, they may have a hell of a lot more capability than the modern equivalents.

My cell phones in the late 90s were huge, then they got smaller and more capable, but in order to get bigger and more useful screens on them, the iPhone and Blackberrys have gotten bigger again...but of course they can do so much more than my 1997 Motorola cell.

RAMA

Agreed. I'm just thinking back to any "desktops" we see in offices like any Captain's ready room. The computer in the E-D's ready room, particularly, has an almost minimalist keyboard interface to it compared to today's laptops, but i'm pretty sure we can infer that Picard did a great deal of work in there as well. So even with the relatively small board, he seems to get a lot done anyway, which hints at increased capabilities.