One Device for the price of Three?

[Shamrock Holmes]

After looking some of the 'tricorder' type devices that have appeared in more recent Trek productions, such as the late 2370s tricorder: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/_...r_2379.jpg/180px-Starfleet_Tricorder_2379.jpg

The Earth-Starfleet scanner:

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/_...r,_2151.jpg/180px-Starfleet_scanner,_2151.jpg

The Earth Starfleet PADD:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/_...humb/c/cf/PADD_2150s.jpg/180px-PADD_2150s.jpg

It seems to me that - especially paired with an earpiece - one device could easily function as a communicator, tricorder and display device. Although I could also see specialist tricorders and larger format PADDs being available for crew members who have a particular need (the medical or engineering staff perhaps).

Does anyone agree or am I completely off base here?

Shamrock Holmes

 

[Christopher]

It's fitting you should put it that way, because the whole reason the tricorder is called that is because it was meant to be three devices in one -- a sensor, computer, and audiovisual recorder. (In the '60s, portable cassette recorders were a cutting-edge technology, so the tricorder was supposed to be a more futuristic version with three whole functions! Unlike today's primitive handheld communication devices that have only, ohh, several dozen functions...) So I guess what you're suggesting would be a pentacorder.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I kind of thought that tricorders could serve as communicators if necessary--that they could transmit data back to an orbiting ship--but Starfleet still wanted a dedicated communcations device nevertheless.

 

[Timo]

We have seen visual records made of landing party missions, and the device making those records appears to be the tricorder. OTOH, we have never seen a tricorder socket, nor have we seen the transfer of a memory cartridge from a tricorder to the starship's computers. So wireless transfer of information would seem to be confirmed in principle. It's just a question of range, I guess: can a tricorder do a data dump across surface-to-orbit distances?

TOS doesn't really give us examples where our heroes would be lacking their communicators but would retain access to their tricorders...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Starlock]

The real world reason why there were separate communicators and tricorders was because *cough*Gene Roddenberry wanted to be able to sell more toys.*uncough*

 

[Christopher]

More likely it's because communicators were introduced first (in "The Cage") and tricorders came later (in "The Enemy Within"). And because it was the '60s and the idea that a communications device could have computer functions built in wouldn't have been as likely to occur to people back then.

 

[Campe]

If Star Trek were re imagined from the bottom up today (even moreso than the Abramsverse), would we even see a tricorder or a communicator? Or would it all be a chip that would be implanted in your brain with a built in communications array and information sent right to your brain in regards from a scanner in your visual field that acts as a tricorder?

 

[Starlock]

More likely it's because communicators were introduced first (in "The Cage") and tricorders came later (in "The Enemy Within"). And because it was the '60s and the idea that a communications device could have computer functions built in wouldn't have been as likely to occur to people back then.

True dat. I recall from "The Making of Star Trek" an early memo bringing up the idea of a "recording device" for female Yeomen to carry around AND the idea of a toy version that could be marketed to young girls.

So I am sticking with my "sell more toys" statment.

 

[Christopher]

If Star Trek were re imagined from the bottom up today (even moreso than the Abramsverse), would we even see a tricorder or a communicator? Or would it all be a chip that would be implanted in your brain with a built in communications array and information sent right to your brain in regards from a scanner in your visual field that acts as a tricorder?

Well, I was going to say that a film or TV franchise would need a more visual, external way of conveying what the characters were doing. But then I realized that on a lot of shows today, such as Leverage, you have the characters routinely talking to each other on their "earwigs," those little radio transceivers that go inside the ear and are essentially invisible. And Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda already used the idea of characters communicating via internal implant (although I think maybe the later producers reverted to handheld comm devices after the original showrunner was fired).

I remember how the plot of "Identity Crisis" on TNG required a member of the other ship's away team to use a video headset to record their experiences so that Geordi could reconstruct them on the holodeck. Not to mention how Geordi's VISOR was used in a similar way much earlier in "Heart of Glory." I always figured that should be standard equipment for all away teams. (And it's one more reason why I think it would've been a better show if they'd made Worf the engineer and Geordi the security chief.)

 

[Timo]

We might interpret the camera headset as the inferior visual recording system, only used by civilians who have no access to the more capable tricorder, or no use for its broader range of recording abilities.

If the Victory team had recorded the Tarchannen events with a tricorder, there would have been no "shadows" in the imagery, as tricorders can scan beyond walls, hills and the like. But when one of the characters brought a hobby device with him (or perhaps he was moonlighting for the Federation News Service?), a plot was generated!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

After looking some of the 'tricorder' type devices that have appeared in more recent Trek productions, such as the late 2370s tricorder: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/_...r_2379.jpg/180px-Starfleet_Tricorder_2379.jpg

The Earth-Starfleet scanner:

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/_...r,_2151.jpg/180px-Starfleet_scanner,_2151.jpg

The Earth Starfleet PADD:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/_...humb/c/cf/PADD_2150s.jpg/180px-PADD_2150s.jpg

It seems to me that - especially paired with an earpiece - one device could easily function as a communicator, tricorder and display device. Although I could also see specialist tricorders and larger format PADDs being available for crew members who have a particular need (the medical or engineering staff perhaps).

Does anyone agree or am I completely off base here?

Shamrock Holmes

I really like where you're going with this, the idea of an all-in-one type of device that does everything makes sense.

HOWEVER...

Star Trek made its reputation by being way ahead of the curve technologically and in a very realistic way. We're kind of forgetting that TNG had that going for it too, with officers being able to call for any particular selection from the ship's music library just by asking the computer, play interactive computer games in the holodeck, use a machine that can create their favorite dish out of thin air, etc. The all-in-one handheld device is in danger of being dated already; it's pretty much an iPod with a sensor attached to it.

I think the Star Trek "ahead of the curve" protocol calls for something wearable. Say, a small device built into a wristband that paints a small holographic window in front of you for whatever function you want to use; if you're in tricorder mode, a tricorder screen will appear in the air and you interact with that, complete with ethereal buttons and controls to push. If you're reading a book, the text appears in front of you, and if you're WRITING a book it draws a keyboard and/or a pen for you too. And as a communicator... well, depending on the show's budget it can either function as an ordinary comm badge (so you don't have to hold it up to your mouth to talk) or it creates a holographic viewscreen in front of you with an image of the person who's calling you (and you, in turn, appear on their viewscreen).

Just occured to me: combine this device with a forcefield belt and you've got a redshirt running around as a one-man starship. He's got shields, he's got sensors, he's got a library computer, and if push comes to shove he's even got his own viewscreen. Imagine Ensign Ricky walking on Deneb-IV when his tricorder announces "Warning: Weapon signature detected bearing 104, range two thousand meters." The ensign says "Visual," and a viewscreen appears in the air in front of him with a zoomed-in picture of six Romulan troopers firing at a nearby village.

[/nerd]
Just thinking out loud.

 

[Christopher]

Except that "holograms" floating in midair (aside from having nothing to do with what the word "hologram" actually means) don't make much sense in realistic terms. They're a particularly fanciful sci-fi cliche. Light has to be either emitted by or reflected off something; it can't just "hover" somewhere. You can get a limited kind of "floating" midair display by spraying a mist of fine particles in the air and projecting a 2D image onto it like a screen, but it would be wavery and wouldn't work well in bright light (let alone in motion or in a strong wind), and eventually you'd run out of mist. There have also been experiments with using lasers to ionize the air in a desired pattern, but that's kind of bright and noisy, since it's basically the same principle as lightning.

Maybe, hypothetically, you could suspend some reflective metallic particles in midair using a magnetic field; there's a principle called quantum locking that could maybe keep them suspended in a fixed orientation relative to the emitter. But it would be tricky to work out the engineering, and the particles could still be knocked out of place, and there's still the question of how well it'd work in bright light. And it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to. If you want a wearable device, why not just a contact lens that projects a heads-up display in the person's field of vision? Better yet, use two lenses that can generate stereoscopic images, so you could have the illusion of a "holographic" keyboard under your hands (with sensors tracking your finger movements so the device would know what keys you "pressed"). Nobody else could see it, of course, but it would be a simpler way of achieving the same result.

And seriously, I always think it's silly when sci-fi shows portray people using translucent screens, whether floating "holo"-screens or just clear material like the "flexis" on Andromeda or the screens in Minority Report. I mean, a see-through screen would work terribly because the stuff behind it would make it harder to see what was on the screen. It's one of those things that sci-fi shows and films include because it looks futuristic and different, but that doesn't really make much practical sense.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Except that "holograms" floating in midair (aside from having nothing to do with what the word "hologram" actually means) don't make much sense in realistic terms. They're a particularly fanciful sci-fi cliche. Light has to be either emitted by or reflected off something; it can't just "hover" somewhere. You can get a limited kind of "floating" midair display by spraying a mist of fine particles in the air and projecting a 2D image onto it like a screen...

Or you can project a small forcefield tuned to deflect a particle or laser beam transmitted into it. That's basically how Star Trek holograms are supposed to work.

Maybe, hypothetically, you could suspend some reflective metallic particles in midair using a magnetic field

It's Star Trek, dude. They have forcefields.

Better yet, use two lenses that can generate stereoscopic images, so you could have the illusion of a "holographic" keyboard under your hands

Better yet: use a forcefield.

I mean, a see-through screen would work terribly because the stuff behind it would make it harder to see what was on the screen.

HUD displays don't have this problem since you're overlaying graphics over what you're supposed to be looking at anyway (a useful setting for a tricorder, methinks). Otherwise, you could just adjust the opacity of the image you're projecting.

 

[Timo]

Or you could have an image that is perfectly transparent from most angles but opaque from the angle that the user desires. The classic sorta-transparent green glow from some angles would just be the undesirable middle ground created by technology shortcomings. Or then even that would be a desired functionality, to tell the user that he's approaching the sweet angle.

But all that is so slightly ahead of the current tech curve that I'm not sure it would be worth the hassle. Visual input of information is so second millennium! Really, if our scifi heroes had more streamlined access to networked information than we do today, we'd probably completely lose the "ooh, now they're googling for information" angle - instead, we'd simply see our heroes constantly act supersmart, or at least superknowledgeable. And telepathic. And perfectly empathic.

That would take quite a bit of writing skill to pull off. And Trek isn't about that sort of writing skill. It's nostalgic, conservative, warm and safe: "Look, the military is taking care of the space monsters for us, and our boys aren't even being rude with them. AND they aren't using scary new technologies that make THEM space monsters! All they have is these pretty forcefields and rays that don't cause pain or splatter blood."

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

The way I always explained it to myself is that the Tricorder has devices/scanners that work best when equipment like the communicators subspace isn't inside the box to cause interference--but could be used for standard lightspeed comm-traffic in a pinch. A super lowe energy cathode ray tube that also acts as a resonator in some way and is less showing than the Archer era iphone type device.

One remembers the WWII adage 'put that light out' so you want a smaller screen in a hood. People use iphone displays as a quick and dirty flashlight--so you want something stealthy.

A good episode would be to have the TOS crew beam down to a cyberpunk location earlier in Earths history. The technology is more showy and slick, and some hacker heads make fun of the TOS communicators as looking like flip phones--until they work after an EMP blackout that changes humanities relationship with technology.

Earlier though, we see Spocks primative looking tricorder download, say, the entire 21st century internet or something boggling to the kids--even if it doesn't look like much:

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/68/68startrek.php
http://federationreference.prophpbb.com/topic888.html

The idea is that the cyberpunk look is too distracting, while the more capable but nobler, simpler TOS humanizes us more, not less. In the cyberpunk world, second life and (something like Cowboy Beebops scratch movement) forces humanity inward. Space exploration suffers.

Then the EMP burst forces a new look at ourselves and how we interact with tech. Space exploration forces us outward, with more of a distruct of the ennui cased by cyberpunks-as-lotus-eaters.

 

[tafkats]

We have seen visual records made of landing party missions, and the device making those records appears to be the tricorder. OTOH, we have never seen a tricorder socket, nor have we seen the transfer of a memory cartridge from a tricorder to the starship's computers. So wireless transfer of information would seem to be confirmed in principle. It's just a question of range, I guess: can a tricorder do a data dump across surface-to-orbit distances?

I can't remember if it was ever shown canonically, but the TNG tech manual says it can.

Anybody else think the 24th-century tricorders have a pretty poor user interface design, though?

 

[ngc7293]

I can't remember if it was ever shown canonically, but the TNG tech manual says it can.

Anybody else think the 24th-century tricorders have a pretty poor user interface design, though?

There was that episode where Wesley and the Captain were stranded on the moon and Wesley had to tap away on his tricorder like a madman (or like he was texting while driving )
Though Wes is not your normal guy I would think your average 24th century personnel would get used to small buttons much like we get used to small buttons on cell phones.

 

[Christopher]

Anybody else think the 24th-century tricorders have a pretty poor user interface design, though?

Not as bad as the TMP tricorder. That thing didn't even have a screen. I can't for the life of me figure out how it was supposed to work.

 

[Timo]

The wedge thing on top would probably contain the sensors, looking out through the blunt end. So if the thing is held from one or both sides by those black grips, the natural place for the readout system would be that gray square between the grips... We just didn't see it light up.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think the large red square and the two smaller green rectangles to the left of the input keys were supposed to be displays or indicators of some kind, but wound up being simply unmarked painted areas on the tricorder props.
http://propdept.home.comcast.net/~propdept/tmptri.jpg