Obsolete Equipment description and stats

jedion357

January 4, 2013 - 10:43am

I just notice something as i was looking up the stats and description of an item of equipment I wanted to use in a PBP game.

that its description did not make sense from todays perspective.

So this thread is to post items you find a problem with and to discuss fixes and updates.

File computer, cost 120 credits (which if fine) dimensions are 15 cm square by 5 cm thick and there in lies the problem 15 cm square is fine and actually a number of square or rectangle configurations are certainly possible but the 5 cm thick is quite thick when you think about a modern I pad or phone. i beleive that what Kim Eastland was describing here when he compiled Zebs is the computerized note board we all saw Jim Kirk signing in TOS which would have been about 2 inches thick or roughly 5 cm. That is obviously out of date.

I think we can make the file computer 1 cm thick with audio, camera and touch screen imput as well as a jack for data transfer.

we can also invent a file computer with integral chronocom circutry for 200 cr that would allow for wireless access to open computer nets. On high and medium population worlds there may be a data net (like our internet) available to access information.

I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller

January 4, 2013 - 11:00am

You are starting something that takes us back to the days of 1950s Sci Fi movies and their attempts to make things look futuristic using current technology. Remember all those wonderful spaceship controls with dials and levers.

Now do we want to update our technology to current standards? This could change things like the ID card and the chronocom would be combined.

Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357

January 4, 2013 - 11:12am

rattraveller wrote:

No I just thought if something isn't making too much sense then a little tweak wouldn't hurt like 1 cm instead of 5 cm thickness on this particular computer.

obviously com and computer tech is probably the most needy of overhaul but that would be an overhaul I think quick updates are better served here to bring some things in line with what we know.

as to ID cards and chronocoms being combined I have my doubts about that. I think ID cards will be ID cards for a long time unless we go to implanted chips and bar codes on the forehead or forehand. however said bar codes smack a little too closely of the eschatology of some major religious movements and might be very uncomfortable to include. Also theft becomes much more of an identity theft issue with that unless you are going with an implanted chronocom but then we are not talking about an updated item but rather an overhauled item which could or probably would change the flavor of the game for some folks.

I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller

January 4, 2013 - 12:34pm

To me the chronocom was an attempt at combining the emerging cell phone tech with the old familiar Dick Tracy wrist phone. Of course the internet was no where near where it is today and was not to readily mixed into the technologies.

Updating some of the items would be OK but to much changes the game. Try and keep the 80s feel with the look but updating to the current abilities would keep things playable.

Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357

January 4, 2013 - 1:06pm

I agree to a point about maintaining the 80's and perhaps others would more staunchly defend keeping the 80's feel. I think the file computer is a good example as the changes I suggested are largely cosmetic except for the one with the integrated chronocom. The 80's style main frame computers can be viewed as servers, the essentialy lap top device introduced in Dark Side of the Moon can be dusted off and given wider circulation. Little up dates like this help the game not hurt it. After all new equipment submissions for guns are never really a problem unless the are overpowered but most people respect game balance for the most part.

I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

samlangdon

January 5, 2013 - 9:28am

I agree that the computer adjustments you point out are warranted. They will be implemented in the pbp game.

These two yazarians and this vrusk walk into a bar...

Karxan

January 5, 2013 - 8:06pm

I think the Id card and chronocom as jedion said are fine. we see id cards today getting more high-tech, but essentially the same. I always looked at the ID card as a combination of ID, debit, credit, access badge and that still can apply to the game without any real changes. As for the chronocom, I think that a little updating to fit new ideas would be good, but like RT said, it always had the feel of the Dick Tracy watch. So a time piece, cell phone, maybe some computer ability but limited would be updated tech but no real difference than the original design. Maybe a new look for it though, smaller thinner?

Ascent

January 5, 2013 - 9:40pm

I don't think the cell phone factored into the chronocom's design. The chronocom was a feature of science fiction since Rocket Ranger. (I believe Rocket Ranger, or maybe it was Commander Cody, or maybe Captain Video, had full video wristwatches.)

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Karxan

January 6, 2013 - 2:08am

I was just pointing out how the function would be tied in. The old wrist phone with full video is very similar to cell phones today. Similar tech from a different era.

jedion357

January 6, 2013 - 4:57am

I think we could keep the "wrist phone" paradigm and chalk it up to being dralasite developed and marketed. A dral is as apt to run around naked and they like the strapped on chronocom. While its a popular idea that they can just hide stuff in their bodies this is rarely good for the item hid and for the dral as they body first treats it as food to be digested and then as a foriegn invader to be fought. The vrusk adopted it from the view of it made more sense to only have one style- (it costs just as much money to develop and market a second style of chronocom as the first and yet you can only sell it to half the population).

When humans, dralasites, and vrusk met and technology was exchanged personal phones for humans were going in a different direction but the fad developed so sport the dralasite style phone as it showed contact with the new alien species that everyone was excited about but few had actually met. None the less sporting this phone suggested that you had traded with the new aliens because in many of the first photographs of the first contact with these two alien species the chronocom was conspicuously visible on both the drals and the vrusk. It became the hot new thing that everyone had to have. After that it became entrenched in Frontier culture and if you managed to import "cell phone" to the Frontier everyone would complain that they were going to get lost or broken and sales would slump.

I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Ascent

January 6, 2013 - 9:32pm

I prefer just to update the tech. According to the creator interviews, the game was made with the intention of updating the tech as new tech was developed. The goal was for the game to be up to date according to the latest science.

A chronocom was understood one way in 1981, but a different way in 2013. Now we understand the full capabilities of computers and that there is no limit to how much computing power can be stuffed into a 2" square 1 cm thick. It is essentially a body computer that only needs a network to update its software rather than silly massive cubes that handle small tasks.

Cedric

January 9, 2013 - 7:29pm

Before we get carried away, I'd like to point out something.

While our current tech level is neat and all, it's not exactly space-compatible. For example, the international space station runs on obsolete 386 and 486 computer parts because the "modern" computers wouldn't work in zero-g. Not real sure why (we donated three old PC's to the cause).

Also, our electronics are hideously vulnerable to EMP, while electronics used in space have to be a bit more proofed against EMP, ionization, soft radiation, and so on. All that shielding takes up space.

And let's not forget the most important reason to make things bigger : There's more space inside to work with if they need repairs or upgrades. Gadgets may get smaller, but hands don't. In our modern disposable culture this isn't a giant problem, but we might assume the Frontier races are a little more civilized than that.

Ctrl+Alt+Smite

Ascent

January 10, 2013 - 7:32am

Corporations don't seem to be having that problem. They're tackling space without concern for outmoded tech. You have thousands of satellites in space that are handling our communications networks using modern tech. They're planning manned space flights with no mention of concern for using outmoded tech. I'm not sure what you heard/read, but modern tech works fine in space. Fiber optics can't be affected by EMP. So all you have to worry about is protecting a small box of EM parts, which we most certainly do have the technology to do. Even low tech lead can accomplish that.

Also, if they really needed low tech, all they have to do is create it. Even an 8-year-old little girl can make a 486. I know, I saw it at my own school when I was a kid. She made national news.

Perhaps you have forgotten some piece of the information you read along with it, or misread something. I've done that before. If you find an article on it, let us know.

iggy

January 10, 2013 - 6:16pm

I'm an electrical engineer who has done satellite design. Our only concern was radiation shielding. The solar wind it not benign. Where we ended up using old electronic technology was where NASA or military specs had not approved a part. Usually this was because shielding was not an option and we needed a rad hard part.

-iggy

Cedric

January 11, 2013 - 7:24pm

Ascent wrote:

I'm not sure what you heard/read, but modern tech works fine in space...

Perhaps you have forgotten some piece of the information you read along with it, or misread something. I've done that before. If you find an article on it, let us know.

I'm still looking for the newspaper article where we heard about it, but I speak from personal experience. My S.O. and I loaded a pair of mostly-in-parts 386 and a 486 in to the car and drove it the hour trip to the Johnson Space Center. The techs were quite thrilled by the responses they'd been getting that week. They didn't think anybody would still have the older stuff, but they had already received two dozen or so and it was only the first week since the report had run.

My point of all this that we get comfortable and confident in state-of-the-art gadgetry and sometimes we assume things will work in ways that they really don't. Devil in the details and all that.

Plus, it's a nice touch to have a player drop a load of credits on the ultra-chic all-custom designer-face chronocom only to find out when he's stuck in an alien world's monsoon that it didn't come with waterproofing.

Ctrl+Alt+Smite

Ascent

January 11, 2013 - 7:56pm

It is also an illogical convention of hard science fiction story makers to think that modern restrictions will still apply 200 years from now. Forward thinking requires disregarding current restraints, especially when they're trivial. "Nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." —Genesis 11:6, NIV.

FirstCitizen

January 11, 2013 - 8:20pm

There was a news segment on NPR, I am thinking around the September '12 timeframe (it was fairly recent), that talked about NASA, SpaceX, and some of the reasons why they use old tech. From what I recall of the segment the new private companies fall back most of the time on reliable and proven, especially when it is a critical component, but they do use more modern equipment where it makes sense.

If you want to experiment with the effect of adverse conditions on electronics take one of those portable household air cleaners (that say to keep 2 meters away from electronics) and put it right next to you new i7 computer and see how long it takes to blue screen. Then dig up an old '286, preferably with a Hercules Monochrome (Amber), and see if it even crashes. Disclaimer : I won't pay for new RAM chips, processors, etc from such home experiments.

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