You? Are a computer?

[RobertScorpio]

Obviously computers have come a very long way since TOS was made. And yet, even now, even TNG is starting to feel dated. What use of a computer, from any trek show, do you think is the most realistic use of a computer based on where we are and where TREK takes place?

Or will our real life tech always catch up?

Rob
scorpio

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Obviously computers have come a very long way since TOS was made.

No they haven't. Exactly how many supercomputers in the current TOP500 are, A). equipped with 100% reliable, context-sensitive natural language user interfaces or, B). can support even partial uploaded human personalities (The Ultimate Computer) or, C). can - as pointed out by Nebusj in another thread you started on the subject - autonomously develop a physical theory to successfully transport humans into a parallel universe (Mirror, Mirror)?

TGT

 

[JNG]

Well, gee, in isolation, I have no problem with the statement that computers have come a long way since the mid-to-late 1960s.

I do think the highly naturalistic lingual interface and its heavy integration into daily life for many tasks like ordering food, adjusting the lights, and whatever else you want to name are realistic goals in that people probably will want this some day and it is achievable. (Sure, there are limited circumstances where people do this now, but I am thinking of the near total integration of TNG.)

I believe in these uses of the computer a bit more than when they ask the computer to make strategic predictions or guesses, or when a holodeck character becomes self-aware. It isn't exactly because I think the former requires lesser technological development, but more that it is both more difficult than people think and yet something they'd be very motivated to get working.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Well, gee, in isolation, I have no problem with the statement that computers have come a long way since the mid-to-late 1960s.

To clarify my outburst, I was referring to the way computers were represented on TOS and not the capabilities of the actual computational hardware that was available for purchase in the United States and Europe circa 1967.

TGT

 

[RobertScorpio]

Obviously computers have come a very long way since TOS was made.

No they haven't. Exactly how many supercomputers in the current TOP500 are, A). equipped with 100% reliable, context-sensitive natural language user interfaces or, B). can support even partial uploaded human personalities (The Ultimate Computer) or, C). can - as pointed out by Nebusj in another thread you started on the subject - autonomously develop a physical theory to successfully transport humans into a parallel universe (Mirror, Mirror)?

TGT

Well, as a regular person, I think today's comptuers look easier to use than Spocks clunky thing that was next to him in the briefing room....

And, if you notice, they still have counters that look like they came from the 1950s (Sulu's warp speed counter)...they must have been on some RETRO kick when they built the enterprise...

Rob

 

[CaptainStoner]

I don't think the TNG computers seem dated, but the implementation in the scripts are definetly dated.
For instance, how many TNG episodes have a plot device that is resolved, painfully slowly, by essentially using the Ent-D's search engine?
"Darmok" was the one I'm thinking of, where Troi and Data are trying to figure out the language, and finally come across the common links in the terms the aliens used. Hello, Data? Search engine? Use it much?
Still love that episode though. It's a classic.

 

[Shawnster]

TOS seemed to change their "floppy discs" a whole lot more than what we do. Heck, we don't even use floppies any more. Seemed like those mult-colored data wafers in TOS didn't contain much information.

There was a scene in TNG's "Second Chance" where they're trying to access the computer link at the end of the episode. The network was damaged. At the time I thought "Man, they didn't give the computer much time to make the connection, did they?" I think about that alot now because I can tell pretty quickly nowadays when a network isn't responding.

Digital information has come a long way. Whenever the Enterprise and crew would lose the transmission the image would break up like an analog signal (going fuzzy, static, horizontal hold/control going out of wack). Compare that with today's digital signals and how they break up (how many of you here don't even know what horizontal hold is/looks like?)

Now, I still can't make heads or tails out of how a TOS or TNG-era interface works. If it doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard or mouse/Windows I'd get lost.

 

[Kelso]

Well, as a regular person, I think today's comptuers look easier to use than Spocks clunky thing that was next to him in the briefing room....

IIRC, he just pushed a button or two and talked to it.

 

[2 of 10]

On Voyager, the Computer Core powers most of the systems on the ship running through the Bio-Neural gel packs, it also is responsible for generating the Astrometrics Lab, The EMH, Most if not all Bridge Operations, Life Support, Sevens Alcove and more. Is there a compting systems that could run all those operations today??

Resistance is Futile

 

[EEE]

(how many of you here don't even know what horizontal hold is/looks like?)

If you don't know how to use the VERTICAL hold and/or how to get a family member to adjust the ANTENNA, you've never had the original Trek experience! *grin*

 

[Sheliak]

Try to think outside the box/tower/monitor.

 

[Anticitizen]

My favorite semi-realistic use of a computer in TOS was 'A Wolf in the Fold', when the noncorporeal entity, needing a 'body' to host, takes over the Enterprise's computer (therefore hinting that its complexity rivals a human brain). Spock orders the computer to calculate pi to the last digit (which is impossible). The computer allocates all available processing power to the impossible task which drives the entity out.

Quite sound use of principles of mathematics and computer logic, and pretty heady for viewers watching in the 1960s!

 

[RobertScorpio]

My favorite semi-realistic use of a computer in TOS was 'A Wolf in the Fold', when the noncorporeal entity, needing a 'body' to host, takes over the Enterprise's computer (therefore hinting that its complexity rivals a human brain). Spock orders the computer to calculate pi to the last digit (which is impossible). The computer allocates all available processing power to the impossible task which drives the entity out.

Quite sound use of principles of mathematics and computer logic, and pretty heady for viewers watching in the 1960s!

Yes, that was cool. From then on all we had to know about how to stop computers/or crazy probes is..

Have them try and solve a math problem until it destroys them (hmmm, Picard. Want to rethink IBORG again)

Or convince them that what they are doing is against the will of God (Murder)


Rob
Scorpio

 

[Anticitizen]

"This... unit... must... die..."