TMP Bridge Set
- Thread starter Ryann866
- Start date
The actual future rarely looks as futuristic as people assume. We were supposed to have flying cars and buildings on stilts by now. What's functional in one era is usually functional in another. The Space Shuttle has a modern glass cockpit, but it also has thousands of good solid buttons and dials and knobs that the astronauts can fall back on if the electronics fail. It would be unwise to design a starship bridge that relied exclusively on "glass cockpit" consoles. The reason so many Trek productions have gone that route is because Okudagrams are cheap to make. They look slick and future-y, but that doesn't make them a more plausible engineering solution. The most plausible bridge would be something that combined both types of controls, like the Shuttle cockpit.
Balony. Show me an example anything on the TMP bridge that looked like it came off an Amstrad.
Certainly not the lit "accordion" buttons.
Or any of this...
Criticize the instrumentation if you don't like it, but if you're going to compare it something, at least make a fair comparison.
Which is an ironic POV considering that metal is being replaced in so many things by composite materials. Maybe metal looks "less cheap" but as time goes on it may look increasingly archaic.
mmm...fonts and colors remind me of something...
http://www.cs.chalmers.se/Cs/Research/Functional/Fudgets/pics/SpaceInvaders2.gif
http://www.erksoft.gr/oscommerce/catalog/images/Amstrad_CPC464.jpg
Clunky Colored Buttones? Check
Awful looking monitor? Check
http://www.synthmania.com/Famous Sounds/Images/Old_computer.jpg
I know you could say thats what computers looked like them the movie was made, but this was meant to be the future, they just had to make it LOOK more advanced not invent a new and functional computer.
Christopher thats a good point but I should have said...advanced not futuristic in the cliche'd sense of flying cars and colonies on the moon.
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trevanian
Rear Admiral
mmm...fonts and colors remind me of something...
http://www.cs.chalmers.se/Cs/Research/Functional/Fudgets/pics/SpaceInvaders2.gif
http://www.erksoft.gr/oscommerce/catalog/images/Amstrad_CPC464.jpg
Clunky Colored Buttones? Check
Awful looking monitor? Check
http://www.synthmania.com/Famous Sounds/Images/Old_computer.jpg
I know you could say thats what computers looked like them the movie was made, but this was meant to be the future, they just had to make it LOOK more advanced not invent a new and functional computer.
Christopher thats a good point but I should have said...advanced not futuristic in the cliche'd sense of flying cars and colonies on the moon.
So you think those are clunky colored buttons and the monitor is bad, huh? Really? Seriously?
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PhoenixIreland, please remember that it's against the board rules to hotlink images from a webspace that isn't your own, or that hasn't given you permission to do so. It eats up their bandwidth, and in return, we get angry e-mails from them.
The pics DS9Sega posted were his own (you can find them at the beginning of this thread), hosted from his own file hosting source, therefore they weren't removed.
Please don't do it again, because I'd rather not have to break out the stick over something so trivial.
KTHXBAI
—biggles
The pics DS9Sega posted were his own (you can find them at the beginning of this thread), hosted from his own file hosting source, therefore they weren't removed.
Please don't do it again, because I'd rather not have to break out the stick over something so trivial.
KTHXBAI
—biggles
Now you're being disingenuous. The only physical "buttons" on most of those consoles are the "accordion" ones. All the red and blue colored controls are backlit artwork like Okudagrams. None of this looks remotely like an Amstrad. Since you' obviously more interested in being "right" than correct I'm done wasting my time with you on this subject.
Wow, well done on getting so aggrivated over something so trivial.
Relax ffsake
Relax ffsake
That's exactly my point. Your assumptions about what's advanced seem to be based on what looks futuristic rather than what actually makes practical engineering sense. Flat, backlit Okudagram panels -- "glass cockpit" designs -- are not likely to completely replace physical buttons at any time in the future, because there will always be a practical value in having manual backup controls. It's a myth that everything we use today will be replaced in the future. A practical design will always be a practical design. Look at us today. We're in the age of nuclear power and space travel, but we still use fire, cloth, and string, technologies invented hundreds of thousands of years ago. New technologies tend to exist alongside the old rather than replacing them completely.
I love the "accordian" buttons (though I call them "Lite-Brites"). 
I have to say I was a tad disappointed when buttons in general faded from the Trek design mythos, but at least they came back a tad for Enterprise.. I do love the Okudagrams and all their graphic splendor, but I like a nice balance. The TMP bridge was very good at this balance.
I have to say I was a tad disappointed when buttons in general faded from the Trek design mythos, but at least they came back a tad for Enterprise.. I do love the Okudagrams and all their graphic splendor, but I like a nice balance. The TMP bridge was very good at this balance.
Meh, the throttle never bothered me.
I wish they had kept the TMP bridge station control surfaces but updated the screens to to the ones from TFF.
I'm not aggravated. I can just see arguing with you is a waste of bandwidth and time.Wow, well done on getting so aggrivated over something so trivial.
Relax ffsake
kitsune
Captain
From my understanding, the Shuttle glass cockpit didn't replace any switches (just 32 gauges and electromechanical displays, and four CRTs), saving 74 pounds in instrumentation weight. So the remaining switches are not redundant, they are still essential, and not a "fall back" option.
Oh, totally conceded. It's purely a POV issue on my part.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
The material that I find (on closeups anyway) that dates a lot of this stuff is the very visible texture of what I guess is fiberglass casting. There's a closeup early in SFS where somebody on a klingon ship plays the genesis tape, and the slot they drop it into has got that textured beaded look that just shouts cheap cheap cheap to me ... I mean, I have used discarded hallmark racks as set walls in zerobudget shows that don't reveal such an old-fashioned look.
If you put the TMP phaser next to the abrams phaser, the TMP one looks more futuristic and less like a water hose nozzle, that's for sure. But if you put the TMP phaser next to the TFF one, it goes back to looking like a waterpistoll.
That's funny, because I always loved that texture. It always made it look more like old repeatedly painted over metal to me. Then again, I don't have a lot of experience in fiber glass casting so I may just not recognize it as such.
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