# Obsolete Star Trek technology **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 17, 2011, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709 "2011-04-17T07:50:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/81 "2011-04-19T14:30:55Z")
All of the analogue gauges and buttons are obsolete today. If you look at modern air craft or NASA concepts of their new (canceled) space craft it’s all glass now, with digital displays that can be changed or modified as needed. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/82 "2011-04-19T15:02:08Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > In TOS they often referred to tapes: I made a tape of it sir, pull the micro-tapes from the sensor memory banks, etc. Were those little square “tapes” really just cassettes with spinning tape inside? I think that was just an artifact of the language, the way we speak of dialing phone numbers. _Tape_ had changed to mean _recording medium_. ---
**Author:** ![brix11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c37758/32.png) [@brix11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brix11)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/83 "2011-04-19T15:35:42Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Enterprise had no laptops, tablet, pads, or phones to access the computer. No text messaging, email etc. Even TNG and Voyager had those limits. Not so for TNG onward. This discussion is incomplete without mentioning the [PADD](http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/PADD). ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/84 "2011-04-19T15:38:08Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Their individual weapons tech is already starting to look rather obsolete. Yeah, they have phasers, but that’s all they have, and they are pretty wimpy weapons when it comes right down to it (and or they are misusing them-i.e. they never keep the beam on and move it around until it hits the enemy-it’s always on then off, one quick shot, which seems _extremely_ inefficient). Your way is what seems inefficient to me. Very wasteful of power. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/85 "2011-04-19T18:47:33Z")
Quoth **Balance** : > [@](#): > > Things like, say, the network of amateur astronomers spotting, verifying, and reporting the presence of the Enterprise in a matter of hours. (They find and track much smaller things all the time.) Only if they’re extremely lucky. Once you’ve found something, tracking it is easy, but that depends on you noticing it in the first place. There are asteroids larger than the Enterprise which passed close to the Earth and which were only detected after they were receding away again. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/86 "2011-04-19T19:20:29Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Your way is what seems inefficient to me. Very wasteful of power. Because if there’s something they seem to lack in the ST universe it’s power. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/87 "2011-04-19T19:57:36Z")
> [@vislor](#): > > Computers - While TNG ones were better than the all independent ones of TOS, they still had no idea of the net and collaborative computing. I think they still had central computer functions instead of being spread out on the ship. Also, assuming they have the memory to have most things on a local file, the idea of any latency in looking things up is probably wrong. We don’t know the architecture of their network.it seeming like a central computer doesn’t mean it is one. I am typing this on a diskless workstation, with storage on one server and compute power on another. I can fairly seamlessly submit jobs to a server ranch of over 1,000 processors, and if that gets full it can go to two others around the country. By TOS time no one is going to care about local storage unless you are on an away team. There is pretty much no latency in looking at files in our current configuration, unless there is some sort of network problem, which presumably would happen even less often then than now. BTW, Spock and Uhura’s wireless ear pieces show they at least had Bluetooth. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/88 "2011-04-19T22:06:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Balance** :Only if they’re extremely lucky. Once you’ve found something, tracking it is easy, but that depends on you noticing it in the first place. There are asteroids larger than the Enterprise which passed close to the Earth and which were only detected after they were receding away again. True, but my point was that once one person spotted them, everyone would know about them before they even realized they’d been made. One stroke of luck, followed by a single tweet, and you’d have an army of stargazers gathering every possible image of the ship and sharing them. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/89 "2011-04-19T22:12:49Z")
What about the use of the term “memory bank” this was also used a lot on Trek, was that ever used in the computer field? ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/90 "2011-04-20T03:22:42Z")
[Retinax V](http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Retinax_V). In _Wrath of Khan_, McCoy tells Kirk he would ordinarily prescribe Retinax V for his presbyopia, or age related farsightedness, but Kirk is allergic to Retinax. McCoy gives Kirk reading glasses instead. Presbyopia is now correctable through LASIK surgery, which will probably have advanced even further by the year 2285. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/91 "2011-04-20T03:43:32Z")
Why don’t we ever see Starfleet Officers watching TV or playing computer games? Because movies and TV and computer games have become so advanced that anyone who’s into that sort of thing never leaves the house. They’re all back on Earth, watching TV and eating replicated burritos. The guys we see exploring the galaxy are a small subset of weird people who have an irrational dislike of any form of entertainment invented after 1895. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/92 "2011-04-20T03:51:39Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > [Retinax V](http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Retinax_V). In _Wrath of Khan_, McCoy tells Kirk he would ordinarily prescribe Retinax V for his presbyopia, or age related farsightedness, but Kirk is allergic to Retinax. McCoy gives Kirk reading glasses instead. Presbyopia is now correctable through LASIK surgery, which will probably have advanced even further by the year 2285. Kirk is also allergic to lasers. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/93 "2011-04-20T09:10:26Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Yet we still use flash drives. I wouldn’t be surprised if we always have some form of physical media for security purposes. It can’t be intercepted the way a wireless signal can. I very much doubt that security is the primary motivation behind using physical media. (Cryptography, when done right, can be unbreakable.) More likely, the motivation then, as now, is that [transferring data via physical media is simply faster than transferring it over a network, wireless or otherwise](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet). At typical home broadband speeds today it’s much slower to send 4 GB over the network than it is to burn a DVD, or use a flash drive or portable hard drive, in some cases even if the two computers are a great distance apart. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/94 "2011-04-20T09:57:29Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > I very much doubt that security is the primary motivation behind using physical media. (Cryptography, when done right, can be unbreakable.) I’m no expert, but from my understanding “unbreakable” encryption either requires some pretty awkward, limited arrangements like one time pads, or is only effectively unbreakable because computers aren’t up to the job. Just because we can’t break something doesn’t mean they can’t. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/95 "2011-04-20T10:15:41Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’m no expert, but from my understanding “unbreakable” encryption either requires some pretty awkward, limited arrangements like one time pads, or is only effectively unbreakable because computers aren’t up to the job. Mathematically speaking the problem of breaking proper encryption is intractable, no matter how fast a computer you’ve got. There are “effectively” unbreakable encryption schemes that will be just as unbreakable now as they will be several hundred years from now, when computers may be several orders of magnitude faster. Even if future computer scientists figure out a way of performing non-polynomial computations in polynomial time, the size of the encryption key can _always_ be increased to the point where breaking the encryption within an acceptable period of time remains impractical. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/96 "2011-04-20T10:20:46Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Kirk is also allergic to lasers. They cause him to dodge faster than the speed of light. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/97 "2011-04-20T11:38:00Z")
They still use stone knives and bearskins. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/98 "2011-04-20T11:59:00Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > Mathematically speaking the problem of breaking proper encryption is intractable, no matter how fast a computer you’ve got. There are “effectively” unbreakable encryption schemes that will be just as unbreakable now as they will be several hundred years from now, when computers may be several orders of magnitude faster. Even if future computer scientists figure out a way of performing non-polynomial computations in polynomial time, the size of the encryption key can _always_ be increased to the point where breaking the encryption within an acceptable period of time remains impractical. Have you ever seen encryption stand up to a moment’s scrutiny on Star Trek? They know things we don’t apparently. Further they live in an environment where some races have vastly superior computer technology to them. Unbreakable by their computers doesn’t mean much. It’s actually one of my worries about current cryptography. I wonder how much sensitive data is in the wrong hands, encrypted, but just waiting for the break through for it to be cracked? When quantum computers start getting into people’s hands breaking many encryption schemes is gonna be a lot easier. All those packet logs people thought were secure suddenly aren’t. Further all the encryption in the world doesn’t mean much if the key is compromised. So either they have to filled with every elaborate key systems, one time pads, and the like. Or they could just use portable storage. For bonus points they could encrypt on the portable storage giving multiple layers of security. Another problem you might not be considering with wireless, is [interference](http://xkcd.com/654/). Even assuming all the data is secure, wireless presents reliability problems when the Romulans/noncorporal entity/subspace anomaly/guy replicating a burrito/etc. jam subspace radio. ---
**Author:** ![Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kim_o_the_Concrete_Jungle)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/99 "2011-04-20T12:37:42Z")
I have trouble with discussions of this sort. There’s a very good reason why Star Trek doesn’t show people sitting around watching movies on the box, or doing social networking on their iPad XXIVs. It’s because Star Trek is a television show/series of movies. People sitting around doing things on little hand-held electronic boxes is neither an appealing visual image nor a suitable means of presenting drama. For recreation Star Trek show people fencing, performing live music, playing three-dimensional chess, visiting the holodeck, or training with the Bat’leth because those things _do_ have the potential to be visually interesting. And why do they talk to the computer instead of typing at a workstation? Because that makes interactions with the computer accessible to the audience. That’s the Achilles-heel of fandom-wankery. The real answer to a lot of these sort of questions is, “because it’s a work of fiction where the narrative has to be discoverable to the audience, and entertaining to them.” That’s a bigger priority than building a fully-realized fictional world logically, from the ground up, step by step from first principles. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709/100 "2011-04-20T13:02:08Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > … “because it’s a work of fiction where the narrative has to be discoverable to the audience, and entertaining to them.” That’s a bigger priority than building a fully-realized fictional world logically, from the ground up, step by step from first principles. Oh, you’re no fun anymore. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-star-trek-technology/578709.md?page=6)