Star Trek Chronometer - A Stardate Clock Program

[kandrey89]

STAR TREK CHRONOMETER

Hello fellow Star Trek fans,

It has been a long time coming, but the time has finally arrived to release a 6 month long development of a Star Trek Clock program.

For many years, Star Trek fans have gone without a reliable, uniform Stardate Time System to refer to, and a lot of time was spent researching, developing, receiving comments, and implementing this Stardate Time System. The system was designed for practical application with everyday use in mind, and Star Trek principles, traditions, appearances, and common sense were taken into consideration during the important developmental stages. The result of this hard work and research has produced what is easily the best Stardate Time System available, which not only provides Star Trek fans with a real implementation of Stardate times, but can also be used as a reliable time keeping device for real-life applications.

Essentially, the program is a clock that has the ability to display Stardate time, as well as Earth time, in interface themes based on the technology shown in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Star Trek: The Original Series," and "Star Trek: Enterprise." It has four different window sizes, so the user can switch between Mini, Small, Big and Fullscreen displays. It can be used to convert Stardate time to Earth time, and back. To enhance the user's experience with the program, and to make each interface theme more realistic, different types of animations and sound effects appropriate to each era were used. The program also includes and makes use of canon Star Trek interface fonts. The settings are highly customizable, so that regular use can be tailored to each user's preferred window size, interface theme, and clock type preference using theme styled controls inside the program. Program screenshots are available here.

The program was written in C++ with Qt Framework (by Nokia) for cross-platform support. What this means is that only one version of the program code is needed in order to compile and run the program on different Operating Systems, including Windows, Linux, OSX, and possibly a few others.

One of my goals was to make a GUI program that any Star Trek fan would like. This meant that the program should require 3 different computer interfaces, LCARS, TOS and ENT, to suite any fan's wish of a Starfleet computer interface. After all why would you want to use a Star Trek program without the cool looking Star Trek computer style interface that would make it more real? For the past couple of years I’ve been perfecting and expanding my LCARS design abilities through an online community http://joseralat.com/forum/.

I have included a Stardate Time System Technical Specifications Document with the program, to help define and help people understand how the Stardate Time System works. You can find the document under the Stardate Specs window inside the program.

I have collated a big list of people who have helped me to design and develop ideas for this program throughout the 6 month period from inception to production, and I thank them. You can find them in the Credits window inside the program.

DOWNLOAD LOCATIONS:​

To DOWNLOAD the program, please visit my website http://chronometer.aeonbase.com/ or find it as “Star Trek Chronometer” on CNET Downloads. Once downloaded, please take a look at the README.txt for instructions or possible problem fixes. (OSX and Linux compatible versions will be released at a later date.)​

LICENSE & LEGAL:

• THIS PROGRAM IS NOT ENDORSED, SPONSORED, OR AFFILIATED WITH CBS STUDIOS INC. OR THE 'STAR TREK' FRANCHISE. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED.
• Redistribution, copy, and use of this program is provided as-is for non-commercial purposes and free of charge.
• If you like this program, please send me an email to let me know.

ORIGINAL PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT THREAD: http://www.joseralat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2198

Works Cited:

• http://starchive.cs.umanitoba.ca/?stardates/part1
• http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Stardate
• http://www.trekguide.com/Stardates.htm
• http://www.hillschmidt.de/gbr/sternenzeit.htm

 

[Patrickivan]

And after I download this, you get all the information including keystrokes, from my computer?

 

[kandrey89]

Absolutely not.
You are welcome to upload this program to virustotal.com and check for any suspicious activity. You will find none.
Furthermore, the program does not ask, nor need internet access, so if you have a firewall, you will not see internet access request for it.

You are also welcomed to check the original development thread from joseralat.com forums where I posted program development updates and etc.

I know my rank is low on this forum, because I usually don't post here, but I thought I'd announce my program here as well.

I've also published my program within the Starfleet International Organization community (sfi.org), so if you are a member and on their emailing list, you probably saw it or will see it in their next issue of CQ Newspaper.

 

[Patrickivan]

That's cool... I was being more facetious then serious. I'm sure you'd have been vetted and booted by now if it wasn't legit.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Have you taken into account the lack of evidence for stardate use on Earth in the 21st century? Therefore, if you want to reproduce the spirit of the show as accurately as possible, the program should just show the calendar date at this time.

 

[kandrey89]

CNET just approved my program for listing, here's the address http://download.cnet.com/Star-Trek-Chronometer/3000-2130_4-75372896.html

Boris: if you are referring to showing the calendar date as a number for Stardate time, then you have misunderstood the purpose of the program. Thus I suggest you reread the part about the Stardate Time System specification. If however you are suggesting that they did not use Stardate in the 21st century, then you are welcome to switch to the Earth Time based clock.

I should also mention that the Stardate Time System does not try to reproduce the Stardates used on the show as accurately as possible but rather present a reliable time keeping device for real-life applications based on approximations of the Stardates (dates and time systems) used in Star Trek.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

I fail to see a purpose in developing yet another fan stardate system. The following requirement...

I should also mention that the Stardate Time System does not try to reproduce the Stardates used on the show as accurately as possible but rather present a reliable time keeping device for real-life applications based on approximations of the Stardates (dates and time systems) used in Star Trek.

...is already satisfied by our international Gregorian calendar, so why bother? If I wanted something that EXTREMELY resembles stardates, I could simply make use of Julian/Modified Julian/Truncated Julian day numbers -- except that those would be extremely useless in practice, since everyone around me is using the Gregorian calendar, so how is your system reliable and suitable for real-life applications? These types of date were designed to simplify astronomical and similar calculations in days before computers.

 

[kandrey89]

I fail to see a purpose in developing yet another fan stardate system. The following requirement...

I should also mention that the Stardate Time System does not try to reproduce the Stardates used on the show as accurately as possible but rather present a reliable time keeping device for real-life applications based on approximations of the Stardates (dates and time systems) used in Star Trek.

...is already satisfied by our international Gregorian calendar, so why bother? If I wanted something that EXTREMELY resembles stardates, I could simply make use of Julian/Modified Julian/Truncated Julian day numbers -- except that those would be extremely useless in practice, since everyone around me is using the Gregorian calendar, so how is your system reliable and suitable for real-life applications? These types of date were designed to simplify astronomical and similar calculations in days before computers.

I neither want to force upon you this Stardate System nor discuss with you how it is different from the YYYYMMDD.HH and etc fan made Stardate systems that are out there.
I will only respond to your concerns with the following:
Stardate Time System in Star Trek is not linear, I felt a time system needed to be developed that doesn't fake the stardates like an adaptation of gregorian date and time into a stardate format. I felt that fans would benefit from a time system which passes time at different rate than 1 second (earth time).
As far as what real life applications there are, that's for the fans to decide. You can use it for your journal, for you conversations, etc, or just use it for a clock (35 earth hours per Stardate) or whatever you feel like. In terms of reliability, I was going for (in terms of words) the availability and the definition of the time system standard, rather than some physical reliability like a reliability of a server working 24/7/365.

In the 24th century, they have computers unlike

These types of date were designed to simplify astronomical and similar calculations in days before computers.

, so if you are really trying to argue why I have created this Stardate Time system standard instead of using Gregorian time then you should really ask the authors of Star Trek why they have a Stardate time system (and think of this question as if you were in the Star Trek universe, and not as a writer throwing some numbers into the script trying to use an obscure time system just to show that an increasing number means time has passed). Few simple reasons comes to mind, Gregorian time is difficult to count on the computer because of it's various terminologies, and other races would not accept an Earth based time system that would not make sense on their planets, thus the system has to be universal.

And that is exactly what the system I designed does. (based of course on the Star Trek Stardates)
Trust me, I have deliberated over all the questions you are asking already when I was designing the system, and approached the problem from different directions in order to make it as useful and clear as possible. I don't think I currently have the energy to retell you every aspect of the deliberation that went into the design of this system, nor the perspective to put all of the ideas and thought patterns into words.

Do your best, try to think about it, don't like it, don't use it.

 

[Tiberius]

So you didn't stick with the "1000 starunits = 1 year" idea?

 

[Boris Skrbic]

kandrey89, I don't think you're very familiar with the history of this subject matter. There have been tons of fan-made proposals and none of them have truly been accepted in fandom simply because they're not the real stardates and they wouldn't be useful in the 21st century even if they were. The most widespread fan system used to be Franz Joseph's YYMM.DD, but even that is merely a "let's dress up and pretend" toy. So why bother creating another one? You're coming across as someone who hasn't done nearly enough "market" research before boldly presenting your software as the system fans have been waiting for all this time.

A useful program would be one that converts between real stardates and calendar dates, but such a program is obviously impossible to develop, because stardates are largely more-or-less random numbers. As for why stardates are used in the 24th century, the truth is, we really don't know. They may be some sort of code which only happens to be useful as a calendar as well, with the Gregorian calendar being used in parallel (since the characters talk about months and years all the time, yet these units are usually difficult to relate to stardates).

Therefore, I safely predict that only the most casual fan will download this software and play "let's pretend" with it. Most fans won't be satisfied because this is only your personal fan invention from your personal canon, not a system based in the actual Star Trek. That requirement is much better satisfied by the current JJ stardate system, as in 2011.47 being today's date, but even that is unlikely to spread since we don't really live with days of the year.

 

[kandrey89]

Tiberius: Obviously not.

kandrey89, I don't think you're very familiar with the history of this subject matter. There have been tons of fan-made proposals and none of them have truly been accepted in fandom simply because they're not the real stardates and they wouldn't be useful in the 21st century even if they were. The most widespread fan system used to be Franz Joseph's YYMM.DD, but even that is merely a "let's dress up and pretend" toy. So why bother creating another one? You're coming across as someone who hasn't done nearly enough "market" research before boldly presenting your software as the system fans have been waiting for all this time.

A useful program would be one that converts between real stardates and calendar dates, but such a program is obviously impossible to develop, because stardates are largely more-or-less random numbers. As for why stardates are used in the 24th century, the truth is, we really don't know. They may be some sort of code which only happens to be useful as a calendar as well, with the Gregorian calendar being used in parallel (since the characters talk about months and years all the time, yet these units are usually difficult to relate to stardates).

Therefore, I safely predict that only the most casual fan will download this software and play "let's pretend" with it. Most fans won't be satisfied because this is only your personal fan invention from your personal canon, not a system based in the actual Star Trek. That requirement is much better satisfied by the current JJ stardate system, as in 2011.47 being today's date, but even that is unlikely to spread since we don't really live with days of the year.

Before go around insulting people, I suggest you read before opening your mouth. I pasted my works cited list, and although it is not by all means complete, they were the most relevant attempts and research done into the area by other people about the Stardates.

Like I said, if you don't like it, leave it, troll your insults elsewhere. In fact, if you have such a negative reaction to this software, then I suggest you don't even use the Earth time clock.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Ok, I eagerly await your impressive download statistics and overwhelming interest by fandom. For starters, let's see what happens with this thread.

 

[Patrickivan]

I checked it out. It looks like fun to me... Is there sounds? I clicked a field that suggested it does, but it wouldn't open...

Any thoughts about doing any smart phone themes and/or apps with this in mind?

I have the one and only LCARS style theme for my Torch, and it's pretty freakin cool except it doesn't have sounds.

I'd also like to see something to inlcude graphics from the original movies. I like the blues and greens. Though as far as your clocks go, I'd say that I like your use of TOS's displays best.

Anyway, seems pretty neat. Good job.

edit- just read the CNET story and see that there are sounds... Question answered.

 

[kandrey89]

Thanks Patrickivan.
By the way, there is also some info in the README under section titled Sounds that might give you some more info about the sounds. I assume that you checked the Play Sounds in the right menu click on the background screen.

Peter Tulay was the designer of the TOS Theme, because he knows a lot more than me about TOS.

I do not currently plan or have time for learning the intricacies of mobile programming, school, hobbies, other commitments.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Hmm...no reactions since JJ stardate 2011.48. Does anyone have suggestions on how to enhance interest?

 

[Pauln6]

I'll certainly have a look at it. I'm writing a star trek story and anything that helps stardates to be consistent with some kind of internal logic is a useful tool.

 

[publiusr]

I still like the idea of a stardate also being an indication of space time. Distance and time. Pulsars used for some parts of the number-line, date for other parts.

 

[Florian Kutscheidt]

Hey,
I was wondering if there is an update on the Linux version?
I mean i highly doubt it because it has been 10 years and nothing happened so I'm expecting a no but still thanks.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Hey,
I was wondering if there is an update on the Linux version?
I mean i highly doubt it because it has been 10 years and nothing happened so I'm expecting a no but still thanks.

The best play-pretend scheme remains Orci/Kurtzman’s YYYY.D[D][D], since that’s the only one in the franchise you can apply even today, on stardate 2021.220.

 

[Deks]

Starfleet has been using 'stardate' terms since the mid 22nd century, but it conformed to more of a regular Earth calendar.
The actual different numbering systems didn't seem to come into action some time after UFP was formed.

The TOS stardates seem rather random and didn't seem to have a progression - at the very least, they seemed confusing... and their low digits seem to imply they were conceived in that form after founding of UFP (or possibly at the founding).

It was easy to understand Voyager's stardate.

If Voyager was launched on stardate 48308... and it came back to Earth around stardate 5500, that means the first digit would be showcasing decades, second one years, third one months, 4th weeks and 5th days (or 4th could be days and 5th could be hours... but hours seem more likely to come after the point).