I was watching the Andromeda Strain on DVD the other day. At wildfire the PA system was always giving announcements to the staff, one of them was concerning the computer.
"Main computer shows capacity versus access time at ten to the twelfth bits."
Does anyone know what this might refer to? Especially with the computers in 1971, ten to the twelfth is a lot of bits even today.
How much is that in kiloquads?
Not sure what they were talking about, offhand. But to help give perspective, 10^12 bits is 125 gigabytes.
Using this definition, about 1 milliquad. 
LilShieste
It’s techno-gibberish. It doesn’t mean anything. Many sci-fi movies are guilty of this.
It only makes sense if you open a socket first.
Wizard progammed it.
I think it refers to an auxilliary computer that exists only to generate artificial crises that have nothing to do with the central storyline. It has an independent power source and cannot be shut down.
Check the Jeffries tube - the answer is in there.
Joe
Cite?
A computer like that could make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.
Yeah, but how many centons is that? :dubious:
Yes, but is that faster or slower than the virus mutates? (Stupid, stupid book.)
It depends. Did anyone try reversing the polarity on the port compression coil?
Dammit, there’s phlebotinum all over my post!
I think they could have fixed that computer, if they had modified the deflector array to emit a tachyon beam.
I like the book when I was 15 but haven’t read it since.
I’ll wager 100 quatloos that it’s pure gibberish.
I saw the movie twice when I was young, both times on television, at somebody else’s house. I enjoyed it. I came across the book when I was in my 20s, and read it, and hated it. It read like a movie script.
That’s the beauty of it, it does nothing 
It can be easily fixed with fluvial dampers and a hydro-spanner.
Your post was edited to let us eat static! :eek:
(Now that had to be the least techno-babbl-esque line in Star Trek of all time )
I feel so joyously geeky! No matter how obscure the reference or quote, someone here at the SDMB gets it.
Ahhhhhhhhh.