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[starmike]

Why would a communicator need to do anything other than serve as a phone? Updating the Tri-corder as a smartphone makes more sense and I guess you can say they should combine those two things but I know from using a phone it takes a moment to get to the phone part of your phone. You don't wanting to be messing with your communcator trying to get to the right app when you got a Mugato trying to kill you. You just want to press a button and talk into it and have someone beam you up.

Jason

You're kidding, right?

Ok, let's say you lose contact with Lt. Jones who has the tricorder, and you need to know about your surroundings. Now what do you do with your communicator?

Again, TOS was made in the 60s. They didn't foresee all this. Just think about what you can do with an iPhone, and all the separate devices it replaced. And you're asking what someone would need 200 years from now?

 

[zar]

Bullshit. Do you know how much tech is in an iPhone? Have you ever developed for one? I don't remember my VT100 checking GPS position, blood sugar count, atmospheric conditions, checking a network on its own, determining calories burned based on activity.

Well I'm pretty sure VT100 could check a network and connect to it. GPS, no, but again, your phone is just receiving data from a huge global infrastructure, not figuring its location in space autonomously.

The other (non-network) sensors are self-contained, yes, but at that point you're comparing it to a tricorder... which again, is vastly more advanced than the sensors in our present-day smart devices. If the next iPhone can detect life forms through a rock, and it's still less than half an inch thick, I'll eat my words.

 

[nutshell]

Do your apps work in airplane mode? If not, then yes you do. This is what I'm referring to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client

The "communicator" aspect of smartphones will instantly be useless anywhere other than planet Earth, because it's entirely reliant on a huge global network infrastructure. Trek communicators do everything completely autonomously.

Does a communicator work without a starship in orbit? Serious question. I'm not sure.

 

[Longinus]

Does a communicator work without a starship in orbit? Serious question. I'm not sure.

Yes it does.

 

[starmike]

Well I'm pretty sure VT100 could check a network and connect to it. Not so much the other things. GPS, no, but again, your phone is just receiving data from a huge global infrastructure.

The other (non-network) sensors are self-contained, yes, but at that point you're comparing it to a tricorder... which again, is vastly more advanced than the sensors in our present-day smart devices. If the next iPhone can detect life forms through a rock, and it's still less than half an inch thick, I'll eat my words.

So you just admitted you're wrong.

The iPhone doesn't just get data from an infrastructure. The goddamn calculator alone does more than a communicator. If you think for one second that an iPhone is just a dumb terminal, well, that's complete ignorance on your part.

Here's a list off the top of my head of what the iPhone can do without a global network:

Photoshop
Camera (still/video in 4K)
Drone control
Gaming
Music
Movies
Health analysis
Blood analysis
Home device control
Atmospheric analysis
Remote device control over bluetooth
NFC reading
Face ID
AR

Could a VT100 do that? But it had a pretty light pen!

 

[zar]

So you just admitted you're wrong.

The iPhone doesn't just get data from an infrastructure. The goddamn calculator alone does more than a communicator. If you think for one second that an iPhone is just a dumb terminal, well, that's complete ignorance on your part.

Here's a list off the top of my head of what the iPhone can do without a global network:

Photoshop
Camera (still/video in 4K)
Drone control
Gaming
Music
Movies
Health analysis
Blood analysis
Home device control
Atmospheric analysis
Remote device control over bluetooth
NFC reading
Face ID
AR

Could a VT100 do that? But it had a pretty light pen!

Come on, man. Are you intentionally missing my point? Obviously classic thin clients didn't have gyroscopes and barometers. I was saying it was the same concept, but smaller, faster, and with more storage. That covers half your list, but if it'll make you happy, I'll amend that with ...and more sensors. But the point is still the same. A smartphone can't be a communicator or locator without enormous supporting "accessories" around the globe and in space, and its sensors are utterly primitive compared to what we've seen on Trek.

 

[BillJ]

Hey, let's not get insulting.

That is the only mode @starmike works in.

 

[starmike]

Come on, man. Are you intentionally missing my point? Obviously classic thin clients didn't have gyroscopes and barometers. I was saying it was the same concept, but smaller, faster, and with more storage. That covers half your list, but if it'll make you happy, I'll amend that with ...and more sensors. But the point is still the same. A smartphone can't be a communicator or locator without enormous supporting "accessories" around the globe and in space, and its sensors are utterly primitive compared to what we've seen on Trek.

You're comparing today's tech with fictional tech 200 years from now. If you're saying that the iPhone is a dumb terminal than I don't know what your point is. You're saying that a communicator won't be able to talk to a ship in 200 years? Remember what cell phones were in the 1980s?

You need a better argument than that.

 

[starmike]

That is the only mode @starmike works in.

Sorry if I point out incorrect statements.

 

[Jayson1]

You're kidding, right?

Ok, let's say you lose contact with Lt. Jones who has the tricorder, and you need to know about your surroundings. Now what do you do with your communicator?

Again, TOS was made in the 60s. They didn't foresee all this. Just think about what you can do with an iPhone, and all the separate devices it replaced. And you're asking what someone would need 200 years from now?

Shouldn't everyone have a tricorder? Why would Lt. Jones be the only one with one? Also couldn't you just contact the ship with the communicator and have someone give you the needed info or beam down another tricorder? Now if your alone and without a tricorder and you don't have a way to contact the ship that would be a problem but you would hope that starfleet officers would have enough basic survival skills to kind of make do without tech for awhile until someone, finds them. I do think it makes more sense with what 24th century Trek did and make the communicator a comm badge but I would be willing to go with the old school idea out of tradition.

Jason

 

[BillJ]

Sorry if I point out incorrect statements.

No, you're insulting and condescending, which makes you not much fun to converse with.

 

[Noname Given]

Shouldn't everyone have a tricorder?...

Jason

Usually (well talking TOS) if it were a 'standard' landing party, only the Science officer would have a full Tricorder. If there was a Medical officer in the bunch, he would have a Medical Tricorder. So, no, it wasn't a standard that everyone carried a Tricorder. The only thing everyone usually had was a Communicator (so they could be beamed up/maintain contact with the ship.)

 

[starmike]

No, you're insulting and condescending, which makes you not much fun to converse with.

Well, when people say "an iPhone is a dumb terminal", and continue to make that point, am I supposed to say "oh yeah, you're right, my bad"?

No.

 

[Tuskin38]

22nd

Enterprise used the term 'warp reactor' a lot more then Warp Core.

Which is a mix of TOS and TNG era terminology.

 

[Ithekro]

A Communicator seems today like a very military style technology. As in a purpose built item that does one thing very well so the person in the field will survive. While a smartphone might have many more functions, they would likely distract or take away from the need to communicate with others and especially the starship in orbit.

That does bring up an interesting question about the present day. What communications equipment does the military supply its soldiers today in the field?

 

[Tuskin38]

A Communicator seems today like a very military style technology. As in a purpose built item that does one thing very well so the person in the field will survive. While a smartphone might have many more functions, they would likely distract or take away from the need to communicate with others and especially the starship in orbit.

That does bring up an interesting question about the present day. What communications equipment does the military supply its soldiers today in the field?

Yeah, this is what i was arguing back when the prop was revealed.

The Communicator is a military device, it doesn't need all the features that a civilian communication device has.

 

[zar]

You're comparing today's tech with fictional tech 200 years from now. If you're saying that the iPhone is a dumb terminal than I don't know what your point is. You're saying that a communicator won't be able to talk to a ship in 200 years? Remember what cell phones were in the 1980s?

You need a better argument than that.

I'm not following your train of thought. How did we get from smartphones are dumb to "a communicator won't be able to talk to a ship in 200 years"? I didn't say that at all. You're saying smartphones are already more capable than communicators that can talk to starships. I'm disagreeing because smartphones simply can't do what communicators do, let alone more.

I mean, sure, they can do "more" in that they have other features, but those have nothing to do with communicators. It's like saying your iPod Touch is more advanced than a 7.1 sound system because the speakers can't run Angry Birds.

 

[BillJ]

I do agree that something that can communicate across vast distances without infrastructure would be better than an iPhone for communications purposes.

 

[jamestyler]

The set's don't look all that bad from the 60's. You just have to give them a paint job with more texture. Use modern computer graphics and the buttons can be replaced with touchpads. Replace the chairs and railing with a more metal looking railing. Make the bridge bigger, maybe with a upper and lower deck. Toss in a few new things like holographic projections, robot. Use the same dark look they are using and make the bridge feel busy with tons of extra's moving about all the time. Also establish the ship as being kind of old and show some wear and tear.

Jason

So it's settled.

As long as we change pretty much every aspect of the bridge from structure to consoles to lighting, we can still use it.

Triggers Broom engineering.

 

[zar]

Enterprise used the term 'warp reactor' a lot more then Warp Core.

Which is a mix of TOS and TNG era terminology.

Personally I think a mix like in ENT would be perfect, but to some people, it needs to be "pure TOS" because TOS was a definitive encyclopedia of the jargon of the time... If Scotty didn't say it, it didn't exist. The whole argument was based on one tweet:

https://twitter.com/karterhol/status/909492963578855424

Apparently, the fact that Ted used the word once (even outside of a script) means his claims about being in love with TOS are bogus, he doesn't understand the time period and has no business writing stories set in it.