The Computers of Star Trek

[Metryq]

like old SEAL teams used to throw folks in water to half drown them.

Retired Marines have told me about "drown proofing," where the DIs push one down in a pool with long poles.

 

[scotpens]

Computers in TV and movies still make lots of little clicks, bleeps and bloops that real computers never make. It's as if the audience absolutely must have an aural cue to know that the computer is doing something.

Robbie was intended to represent super-high tech in his day, and now he's basically steampunk. But still gorgeous.

Steampunk refers to fictional technology that looks futuristic from a 19th-century viewpoint. Robby was more like "atompunk."

. . . Seeing the ball head spit out--on paper--the words ANDROMEDA STRAIN in the movie of the same name..added gravitas to the scene. The chatter we used to hear in newsrooms, etc.

That's one thing I miss -- the clatter of typewriters and electro-mechanical adding machines that you used to hear in any business office. It sounded like WORK!

 

[Ssosmcin]

Many times in TOS the audience sees textual data displayed on a computer screen that is actually the image of a typewritten page—with penned underlining, as seen in "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

Well, actually, they could have been looking at scanned copies of the relevant documents, rather than simple computer data text. The original docs, stored back on Earth, could very well have had hand annotations. Scanning buckets of papers is so much faster than transcribing and someone will always miss some scrawled notes. Actually, Kirk and Spock looking over Mitchell and Dehner's records can be seen as one sequence that isn't dated. It is at least in line with what we do nearly 50 years after the episode was shot.

"Hey, won't we be a paperless society by Star Trek's time?" Not of attorney's have anything to do with it.

I love 60's tech and how blinking lights tell them everything the plot requires.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I love 60's tech and how blinking lights tell them everything the plot requires.

And sometimes not even blinking lights. In "Court-Martial," when Kirk's trial is convened on the bridge and every heartbeat has been eliminated but one, Kirk tells Spock to "Localize that." Spock tilts his head and squints into the middle distance as if he's finding Finney by ear. And he finds him.

 

[Metryq]

KIRK: That's all of us, except for the crewman in the transporter room. Mister Spock, eliminate his heartbeat.

Spock throws a switch and we hear the Wilhelm over the intercom as the transporter operator dies in agony.

 

[Timo]

Well, actually, they could have been looking at scanned copies of the relevant documents, rather than simple computer data text.

Quite so. Although we should remember that TOS never showed us a text-input keyboard, neither QWERTY nor any other sort that would have had all the letters of the alphabet as separate keys. On the other hand, we do see a text-input method that relies on a stylus and a pad. Perhaps inputting text with keyboards is out of fashion, and the standard method is a pen-like device again, resulting in "handwritten" documents.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ssosmcin]

KIRK: That's all of us, except for the crewman in the transporter room. Mister Spock, eliminate his heartbeat.

Spock throws a switch and we hear the Wilhelm over the intercom as the transporter operator dies in agony.

Now that was comedy gold.

 

[scotpens]

KIRK: That's all of us, except for the crewman in the transporter room. Mister Spock, eliminate his heartbeat.

Spock throws a switch and we hear the Wilhelm over the intercom as the transporter operator dies in agony.

Now that was comedy gold.

That "eliminate his heartbeat" line is a setup just begging for a punchline.

 

[Unicron]

You know, I'm not sure if I'd ever noticed the random (and very suspicious sounding) Wilhem in that scene before. He probably had a red shirt on, didn't he?