*Another* System?
- Thread starter Jeffr0
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RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Yes. T5 can differentiate itself.
Provide a completely new Star/World generation system based on what we currently believe we know about astronomy and planetology (which, admittedly, is still limited, but it's better than 12 years ago, and much better than 27 years ago). It can follow this up by regenerating most of the UWPs and Stellar Data in the non-fixed areas (everywhere outside the Gateway Domain, the Solomani Rim, and the Spinward Marches; and maybe a couple of others).
It can have the courage to restructure the OTU into a more coherent whole, discarding inconvenient old canon (yes, we're writing J-Torps out of the history; the Archdukes losing their powers gets explained away), and providing new where necessary.
It can cater to fans along the way, by taking input and listening to all sides, even if it doesn't actually follow all suggestions or does some things that others don't like.
Provide a completely new Star/World generation system based on what we currently believe we know about astronomy and planetology (which, admittedly, is still limited, but it's better than 12 years ago, and much better than 27 years ago). It can follow this up by regenerating most of the UWPs and Stellar Data in the non-fixed areas (everywhere outside the Gateway Domain, the Solomani Rim, and the Spinward Marches; and maybe a couple of others).
It can have the courage to restructure the OTU into a more coherent whole, discarding inconvenient old canon (yes, we're writing J-Torps out of the history; the Archdukes losing their powers gets explained away), and providing new where necessary.
It can cater to fans along the way, by taking input and listening to all sides, even if it doesn't actually follow all suggestions or does some things that others don't like.
How about updating some other things like computers? We have gone so far beyond anything the CT designers anticipated and by the time the new rules get published, what we have now will be only "slightly outdated" instead of "pure stone aged". Based on today's computer tech, the equalivent to 9FIB would be the size of a 2 drawer filing cabinet, cost 2KCr or so, and You beat virius by using much smaller units than that with limited memory for each system you need to control. Use the same specialized code commands and another system that only transmits those codes between the systems. By keeping all systems "Dumb", Virius has nothing that it can take over. You would get extra space and all the systems would cost much less than Mt's 30.5 MCr.
What else could be updated in a simular fashion?
What else could be updated in a simular fashion?
Take a number, Andy. That seems to be a recurring worry about Traveller.
Actually, computers were downplayed in T4, and don't appear in the shipbuilding rules at all, if I recall correctly. I think it's safe to assume that computer rules will be more like T4 and less like CT.
Actually, computers were downplayed in T4, and don't appear in the shipbuilding rules at all, if I recall correctly. I think it's safe to assume that computer rules will be more like T4 and less like CT.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Virus would take over computers no matter how complex they are - it's a plot mcguffin that will happen regardless.
(in fact, I think it might end up being more believable if things were more complex).
(in fact, I think it might end up being more believable if things were more complex).
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
No/Deemphasized computers in T5 design sequences!?! <choke />
I hope not.
RobertFisher
SOC-12
Since I'm playing CT, I have to say that there is definately room for something besides D20 & GURPS.
Although, sometimes I think there are so many divergent opinions among Traveller fans that trying to listen to their input is just going to make you more confused.
In any case, from what I've seen, Marc has always been welcoming of fan input. He's just been disappointed by the small amount he's gotten whenever he asked for it.
I think both your points are correct. Start a thread about rules systems and see them come crawling out of the woodwork. Then offer some playtest files and watch the grass grow.Originally posted by RobertFisher:
...Although, sometimes I think there are so many divergent opinions among Traveller fans that trying to listen to their input is just going to make you more confused.
In any case, from what I've seen, Marc has always been welcoming of fan input. He's just been disappointed by the small amount he's gotten whenever he asked for it. [/QB]
I think Flykiller's view is a better one.
Taking his hubcap concept and running with it: we can whine about it, or we can do something about it. Folks carp over broken rules, but frankly I think the best we can hope to do is make 80% of the players reasonably content. We can go a long way to accomodating the different general types of Traveller players.
So what are the general types of Travellers? Well that's what the IMTU code is for: what hot buttons and preferences show how a particular player's mind works.
The major axes appear to be the task system and gearheadedness, with a minor axis on chargen. Discussing the task system is out of the scope of this thread. However, gearheadedness can be satisfied with layers (FFS3 under HG3, for instance), and T5 appears to be solving the chargen problem handily with Life Pursuits.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I will.
T4 (from Greg Porter's CSC) used this kind of computer rule:
A computer's rating R determined how fast it could perform computational tasks. R is TL minus 7. The mass, volume, cost, and range of computers varied by TL.
Computers could be networked together to scale performance. 2 computers could run a job twice as fast as 1.
Computers could be networked together to create a virtual computer with a larger computational rating. 10 computers at rating 3 had the computational power of 1 computer at rating 4.
Computational tasks were defined as operating in a certain amount of time (1 minute?) at a particular rating. At one rating lower, the time was 1 hour. At two ratings lower, the time was 1 day, and so on. Computers below a certain number of ratings could not attempt that task. Computers significantly above the rating could perform the task in realtime, or could handle a greater load, etc.
For example, a rating 7 computer might be able to manage a 100k telephone network. A network of 1000 of them could manage a small global telephone net, or you could get a single rating 10 computer to do it for you. Or you could use that rating 10 computer to handle all media services (voice, data, video, ppv, web, wireless, ...) for a select 100k high-paying customers.
That's basically it.
A computer's rating R determined how fast it could perform computational tasks. R is TL minus 7. The mass, volume, cost, and range of computers varied by TL.
Computers could be networked together to scale performance. 2 computers could run a job twice as fast as 1.
Computers could be networked together to create a virtual computer with a larger computational rating. 10 computers at rating 3 had the computational power of 1 computer at rating 4.
Computational tasks were defined as operating in a certain amount of time (1 minute?) at a particular rating. At one rating lower, the time was 1 hour. At two ratings lower, the time was 1 day, and so on. Computers below a certain number of ratings could not attempt that task. Computers significantly above the rating could perform the task in realtime, or could handle a greater load, etc.
For example, a rating 7 computer might be able to manage a 100k telephone network. A network of 1000 of them could manage a small global telephone net, or you could get a single rating 10 computer to do it for you. Or you could use that rating 10 computer to handle all media services (voice, data, video, ppv, web, wireless, ...) for a select 100k high-paying customers.
That's basically it.
Frankymole
SOC-12
Don't forget, as was established in the extended extended World Builder rules, tech level for robotics/computers can exceed generic TL; hence, on current earth, computer TL is much higher than the TL8 we're roughly at for everything else (but TL7 or less for drives/space tech as we've been neglecting our space program).
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
By the factor-of-ten standards we'd be around TL13 for computers if the original vacuum tube machines are TL5. We may be more advanced in computers than an average culture at our general TL, but not by that much.
I firmly believe that by the time we have interstellar travel computers will be "transparent" technology. Not magic, just so ubiquitous and powerful that their integration will be as seamless as paper and pencil technology today. Just a few centuries ago illiteracy reigned and paper was an expensive hand-made commodity.
Taken from here in the middle of a discussion about computers and Traveller Tech Levels a year ago (go back a page to read from the start):
Hmmmm, the computer I sit in front of today is at least 1000 times as powerful as the 286 I bought for a huge hunk of cash about 17 years ago. It is about 50 times as powerful as the 486 I upgraded to several years later. That is fairly close to Moore's law.
The idea that a whole TL represents a mere factor of 10 increase doesn't fit, unless you're saying we have advanced 3 TL in less than 20 yr.
The idea of linking 10 desktops to equal the typical mainframe is off, too. It would probably be closer to 100, and that assumes gigabit+ connection that would not induce too many wait states in the cooperating processors.
The idea that a supercomputer (purpose built) would only be 10 or even 100 times as fast as a general desktop system is looney! Here is an August 03 announcement, 11.8 Tflop PNNL supercomputer fastest open system, of a system utilizing 2000 Itanium 64-bit processors (each more powerful than today's 32-bit desktops). That's an unclassified machine that would be available to private businesses - the latest news on a Cray using 64-bit AMD Opterons at Sandia says 40 Tflops. Astrophysicists are hungering for similar power from a Thinking Machines system.
Tflops are already 1,000,000 times faster than the Mflop supercomputers of the pre-PC days, which would be the previous TL in Traveller.
So, if we are looking at TL advances in computers a factor of 1000 would be foolishly conservative. I think a factor of 1,000,000 (only 30 years by Moore's law) would be reasonable, and 10^9 not wildly optimistic assuming we're still short of TL 8 maturity and a long way (more than one 20yr generation) from TL 9.
__________
Just a side note, for those thinking that ol' Moore has been running out of steam as systems get faster: the Tflop barrier was broken by Cray in spring of 1997, the 10T barrier in spring 2003.
10 = 2^3.32, 3.32·1.5 years = 5.98 years. Right on schedule!
I firmly believe that by the time we have interstellar travel computers will be "transparent" technology. Not magic, just so ubiquitous and powerful that their integration will be as seamless as paper and pencil technology today. Just a few centuries ago illiteracy reigned and paper was an expensive hand-made commodity.
Taken from here in the middle of a discussion about computers and Traveller Tech Levels a year ago (go back a page to read from the start):
Hmmmm, the computer I sit in front of today is at least 1000 times as powerful as the 286 I bought for a huge hunk of cash about 17 years ago. It is about 50 times as powerful as the 486 I upgraded to several years later. That is fairly close to Moore's law.
The idea that a whole TL represents a mere factor of 10 increase doesn't fit, unless you're saying we have advanced 3 TL in less than 20 yr.
The idea of linking 10 desktops to equal the typical mainframe is off, too. It would probably be closer to 100, and that assumes gigabit+ connection that would not induce too many wait states in the cooperating processors.
Tflops are already 1,000,000 times faster than the Mflop supercomputers of the pre-PC days, which would be the previous TL in Traveller.
So, if we are looking at TL advances in computers a factor of 1000 would be foolishly conservative. I think a factor of 1,000,000 (only 30 years by Moore's law) would be reasonable, and 10^9 not wildly optimistic assuming we're still short of TL 8 maturity and a long way (more than one 20yr generation) from TL 9.
__________
Just a side note, for those thinking that ol' Moore has been running out of steam as systems get faster: the Tflop barrier was broken by Cray in spring of 1997, the 10T barrier in spring 2003.
10 = 2^3.32, 3.32·1.5 years = 5.98 years. Right on schedule!
No, but then, we're living in the 2005 of the Real Universe; IMO we're very obviously not living in the 2005 of the Traveller Universe. The TU and the Real World parted company about 25 years ago and one major difference is the absence of a computer revolution (But I think space exploration did much better in the TU).
Hans
I agree with your first point -- computing hardware is going to be invisible and ubiquitous in the Far Future -- and your last point -- ten PCs do not equal a mainframe.
As far as orders of magnitude go, Porter's rules concern the whole computer, not just how many teraflops it can perform. And that's the way to do it. I think the rules are the best I've seen yet... unless you count Classic Traveller, which might only need some size changes (and might not even need that).
My Commodore 64 is an 8-bit machine, cost $1000 (that's with its disk drive, which was as bulky and heavy as the C64... in fact, it has its own 8-bit 6510 processor, just like the C64!), uses the same amount of power as a modern PC, and runs at a blistering one megahertz.
My home computer is about the same mass and price as the C64 plus its disk drive. CPU went from 8 to 32 bits -- half an order of magnitude? Speed increase is 3 orders of magnitude. I/O, price, power, and size are all flat -- essentially no change.
Average them all out, and you get 0.6 pseudo-orders of magnitude. So, perhaps my desktop is an R0, just like my Commodore 64.
One could argue that a 32 bit machine versus an 8 bit machine is 100 times more complex, bringing the rating difference up to 0.83, but again I'm not sure that really matters in the big scheme of things...
Also, add programming slop to the mix. A program for 6510 or 6502 was far tighter coded than the same program is likely to be on an itanium... simply becuase the programmers don't NEED to jam all the function into 64K op-ram, nor maximize processor times....
base operating system for an Apple II was under 32K op ram, including basic. IIRC, it took a 16kb rom and a 10kb program. it ran at a rating in low double digit kilohertz....
My iMac has more than 50000 times the clock speed, and about that many times the processing through-put. But the OS does so much more that OS tasks are only about 100 times faster... despite also having 512Mb ram, instead of 128kb...4000 times the memory. The OpSystem also takes a whopping 40 MB to run, and eats over a GB on disk, plus uses a 64kb bootstrap eeprom.
Yeah, it will do math much faster. But it won't let me get text files much faster...
base operating system for an Apple II was under 32K op ram, including basic. IIRC, it took a 16kb rom and a 10kb program. it ran at a rating in low double digit kilohertz....
My iMac has more than 50000 times the clock speed, and about that many times the processing through-put. But the OS does so much more that OS tasks are only about 100 times faster... despite also having 512Mb ram, instead of 128kb...4000 times the memory. The OpSystem also takes a whopping 40 MB to run, and eats over a GB on disk, plus uses a 64kb bootstrap eeprom.
Yeah, it will do math much faster. But it won't let me get text files much faster...
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