A Matter of Trust.

[T'Girl]

I was thinking of the "tapes" that they used on TOS. Those little multi-colored flat block you saw so often. They are obviously a form of data storage. Diane Duane's novels referred to them as "Logic Solids." Personally I believe them to be basic mini hard drives. What's strange is that they carry these things around the ship, instead of sending the information electronically.

From a informational security point of view they make sense. If you don't completely trust your data transfer system (or your personnel), then you would either hand carry sensitive information, or convey it about the ship via a automatic delivery system in a hard form like a cassette (to use a term). There was a scene where Spock requests a piece of information from the computer, the cassette is delivered to Spock console, he takes it from one (delivery) slot and immediately places it in another slot to be read. the information wasn't just "sent" to his console. It's possible that they don't think that their conduits are shielded enough for certain information. Perhaps all the many computers aboard the Enterprise are firewalled not just from the outside universe, but also from each other.

I remember they did something like this on the nuBSG too. And supposedly the computers in the basement of the CIA can only be accessed from a small number of terminals inside the CIA building.

Now some of the computers would have to be networked, navigation and engineering, sickbay and various medical labs, but those two wouldn't need to be interconnected. And the crew's entertainment system wouldn't need to be hooked up to either of those.

Later during TNG, DS9 and VOY, the padd in some ways replaced the tape, again instead of sending information internally, people would hand carry padds to Picard, Sisko and Janeway, Janeway especially often would have a literal pile of padds on her desk. Even though she had a monitor a couple of feet away.

Question, do you think they didn't "trusted" their secure information system?

 

[scotpens]

It isn't a matter of trust. It's a matter of unimaginative writing. Information "tapes" in Trek TOS were stored and carried about like mid-20th-century open-reel tapes because the show was made in the mid-20th century. Same reason Kirk made a remark about "printed circuits" when he was trying to provoke Spock in "This Side of Paradise," and Scotty referred to the Botany Bay's "transistor units" in "Space Seed."

An in-universe explanation is whatever you want it to be.

 

[Verteron]

It isn't a matter of trust. It's a matter of unimaginative writing. Information "tapes" in Trek TOS were stored and carried about like mid-20th-century open-reel tapes because the show was made in the mid-20th century. Same reason Kirk made a remark about "printed circuits" when he was trying to provoke Spock in "This Side of Paradise," and Scotty referred to the Botany Bay's "transistor units" in "Space Seed."

An in-universe explanation is whatever you want it to be.

There's far less explanation for some of the stuff we saw in TNG/DS9/VOY though.

I remember in particular one episode where Mr. Neelix was busily running around the ship delivering 'letters from home' to various crew members carrying a big plastic box full of PADDs. This, in an era when e-mail was already pretty ubiquitous, even to the most casual of viewer.

I assume it's mainly for some sort of emotional impact, since people seem to connect with physical objects more than they connect with random data transfers, but it still seemed pretty silly from where I was sitting.

 

[Anticitizen]

Eh, BSG depicted orders being printed out on sheets of paper, despite having FTL drive technology.

This is all more of a stylistic choice more than anything. It's film; you need to give your characters something to do instead of just sitting there, talking. Spock moving a tape from one slot to another is more visually interesting than later shows, which just had characters pecking at panels to the tune of beeping noises, while announcing what they were seeing. There's a lot of 'realness' that comes with physical actions, like the yeoman bringing Kirk something to sign every now and then. It wasn't explained what she was bringing him - probably inspection reports, the duty roster, things like that - but it doesn't really matter; it's those little touches that make it feel like a real, lived-in world.

I'm betting on the fact that by the time the real 23rd century rolls around, cybernetic and biological enhancement will be the norm, and wireless connectivity will be directly available to the brain - which would make even the button-pushing of control consoles seem absolutely quaint.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It isn't a matter of trust. It's a matter of unimaginative writing.

45 years from now, people will look back at the sci-fi of today and probably call it a matter of unimaginative writing too, then.

No one can accurately predict the future, especially the writers of a dramatic television series whose primary job is to entertain the audiences of their time rather than the audience of a future generation.

But from the very first pilot episode of TOS, we know that information from one department of the ship can be relayed to the bridge electronically and printed out either onscreen or by hardcopy. But as already mentioned, it's just more visually interesting from a dramatic perspective to see the characters enter tapes into a machine.

Dramatic necessity trumps everything. Always has, always will, IMO.

 

[sojourner]

Eh, BSG depicted orders being printed out on sheets of paper, despite having FTL drive technology.

Ah, but in universe we had a reason for this on BSG. advanced computer systems were too easily subverted by the cylons. The military purposely avoided advanced systems to make them less vulnerable.

 

[Anticitizen]

Eh, BSG depicted orders being printed out on sheets of paper, despite having FTL drive technology.

Ah, but in universe we had a reason for this on BSG. advanced computer systems were too easily subverted by the cylons. The military purposely avoided advanced systems to make them less vulnerable.

Yeah, but paper.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure if those 1960s data cartridges will make sense from the 2060s point of view still, but they certainly are a sensible approach to data handling from the 2010s point of view.

Any more centralized or distributed method of storing the data would probably lead to its loss, considering how prone the warship is to physical damage. Centralized servers would offer fewer and thus more vulnerable targets to the enemy (or to indifferent forces of destruction), and decentralized storage would risk becoming shattered to useless pieces by damage. In contrast, if everybody carries his or her own precious data in the pocket (and never mind we seldom saw pockets!), safety rather than security is well served.

That's how it works in the real life today: anybody risking his thesis or her latest set of blueprints on networked storage only deserves what he or she will get...

Computing and data processing as such is probably highly integrated in the Trek future. Storage of data need not be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Green Shirt]

Eh, BSG depicted orders being printed out on sheets of paper, despite having FTL drive technology.

Ah, but in universe we had a reason for this on BSG. advanced computer systems were too easily subverted by the cylons. The military purposely avoided advanced systems to make them less vulnerable.

Yeah, but paper.

Maybe it was some kind of metal, rather than paper.