Or... once could simply use an abacus
Don't laugh, it beats doing differentials in a sand box!
Don't laugh, it beats doing differentials in a sand box!
Computer technology
- Thread starter anders lager
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Lu-ucky. When I was first running CT (c. 1980) I had a couple of Computer Science majors playing, and the computer rules were already out-dated. I had to junk the rules and improvise fast.
(The 1980 fix still holds up: the data management/navigation is part of the bridge. What cost/dtons belong to the "Computer" is redesignated as "enhanced sensors". Change two words and ship design and Book 5 combat stay the same.)
mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
Strange group you had. When I played in 1989 we where ALL CS students at the TU Braunschweig and non cared. OTOH we also enjoyed Lensman and Perry Rhodan...
I note an interesting inverse relationship in this thread, that matches what I've encountered in play.
The people who work in high end computing infrastructure have no problem with the sizes of computers in my experience. People who only have a casual acquaintence with computing are the ones who feel the sizes of computing facilities are unrealistic.
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Klaus--
yes.
yes.
Yeah, the other thing to think of is this; what exactly is NASA using for its onboard and ground control data processing as of 2007?
I think that could serve as a good template to "reverse" engineer the justification for the size of ships' computers.
I think that could serve as a good template to "reverse" engineer the justification for the size of ships' computers.
As of twenty-five years ago the Shuttle had three computers, each the size of a shoebox. Today it would take ... three matchbooks?
And remember the programming rules defined a jump program to be not much bigger than normal space navigation. And we know that you can do normal space nav on a pocket calculator.
You can't justify the size by assigning control of life support or engineering systems to the computer, either. Those systems don't stop working if the computer is destroyed.
And remember the programming rules defined a jump program to be not much bigger than normal space navigation. And we know that you can do normal space nav on a pocket calculator.
You can't justify the size by assigning control of life support or engineering systems to the computer, either. Those systems don't stop working if the computer is destroyed.
I'm so excited. I think that this is my first chance to disagree with Uncle Bob.
I'm pretty sure NASA uses a lot of big computers on the ground to help navigate craft between the planets, so it takes more than 3 twenty-five year old shoe boxes.
YOU might be able to detect a fist sized rock in the path of your ship travelling at 0.1 C and take evasive action before it punches a hole in the front and out the back of your spaceship using only a pocket calculator, but I want all of the processing power that I can get my hands on.
IMTU, I found it easier to redefine the computer models to reflect real life a little closer and to add a House Rule that the computer model represents the highest level program that it can run (Maneuver/Evade-1 requires a model 1 computer, Maneuver/Evade-2 requires a model 2 computer, etc). Then I defined a Model 1 as a megaflop/megabyte (10^6) system, a model 2 as a gigabyte/gigaflop (10^9) system, etc. I moved the model 1 to a TL that will not require vacuum tubes and everything else just fit a little better.
TheEngineer
SOC-14 1K
According to "Understanding Space" (a very pretty book for real space tech fanatics) the Spaceshuttle computers are really designed to keep the thing flying and navigatable "on their own".
Ground control was designed to present a more cinematic wrapper for the audience
Ground control was designed to present a more cinematic wrapper for the audience
If we started with a space shuttle in GEO, fuel tanks full, and the cargo bay full of supplies. If we then ripped out the radio so the crew was completely on it's own. Could the shuttle crew pilot the ship to Mars and back (ignoring issues of fuel and life support capacity) using only the on-board computers?
I would honestly like to know if all of the burn times and launch windows can be calculated using only the on-board computers. NASA has had problems hitting planets with unmanned satelites recently (around the turn of the century) - and they had years of preparation and all of NASA's ground based computers to calculate the flight plan.
I wonder whether the shuttles on-board computers are just for "flight control" or if they could plan the entire mission in near real time. This is what any Traveler-esque interplanetary spacecraft will need to be able to do.
The problems of orbital mechanics are not that tough. The equations are straight forward, twenty years ago (when I was a Physics major) I could solve them by hand in an hour or so. Home computers have been running accurate (although boring) space travel simulations for twenty-years: the graphics were more strenuous than the orbital mechanics.
NASA used to do orbital calculations on room-size IBM 360s, which was overkill even with 1960s technology, but impressive. A fifteen-year old PC with a 386 chip is faster and more powerful than those old 360s. And had more memory and drive space.
NASA's problems have been two-fold. Some have been equipment failures, some design. The Mars orbiter was lost because it was programmed in miles and NASA fed it data in kilometers. The on-board computer had never been programmed to convert measurements. As I said, the calculations are pretty simple.
NASA used to do orbital calculations on room-size IBM 360s, which was overkill even with 1960s technology, but impressive. A fifteen-year old PC with a 386 chip is faster and more powerful than those old 360s. And had more memory and drive space.
NASA's problems have been two-fold. Some have been equipment failures, some design. The Mars orbiter was lost because it was programmed in miles and NASA fed it data in kilometers. The on-board computer had never been programmed to convert measurements. As I said, the calculations are pretty simple.
Tracking multiple chunks of space debris, measuring the solar weather, telescopes that look into a target system, 3 parsecs away, and making sure all the other traffic out there is not on a collision course.
Bit more than pocket calculator stuff.
On top of that managing a nuclear power station and modeling all of the above in a form that is easily understandable to the crew.
They also have to carry lots of data. There's no wikipedia across all of known space so you got to carry your info with you.
How big are the computer systems running nuclear power stations, hydro-electric dams, modern supertankers on the open seas.?
The average car has a computer powerful enough to breeze through orbital dynamics. Fast, reliable, and safe space travel is a bit more complicated than that.
The space shuttle is a brick than can barely get into orbit. Comparing it to OTU starships is like comparing an F-22 to a kite.
The programming rules are just a few lines of text buried within the mass of other rules, only of interest to a few. Ignoring them does not break the OTU, it fixes it. If jump programs are ultra complicated then computers are big. There, problem solved.
Bit more than pocket calculator stuff.
On top of that managing a nuclear power station and modeling all of the above in a form that is easily understandable to the crew.
They also have to carry lots of data. There's no wikipedia across all of known space so you got to carry your info with you.
How big are the computer systems running nuclear power stations, hydro-electric dams, modern supertankers on the open seas.?
The average car has a computer powerful enough to breeze through orbital dynamics. Fast, reliable, and safe space travel is a bit more complicated than that.
The space shuttle is a brick than can barely get into orbit. Comparing it to OTU starships is like comparing an F-22 to a kite.
The programming rules are just a few lines of text buried within the mass of other rules, only of interest to a few. Ignoring them does not break the OTU, it fixes it. If jump programs are ultra complicated then computers are big. There, problem solved.
TheEngineer
SOC-14 1K
Hi !
As Uncle Bob already noted any calculations necessary for navigating/controlling a spacecraft like a space shuttle are fairly simple and could really be accomplished by regular home computers today.
Well, they don't have to mess around weird fictional stuff like gravitic thrusters or jump drives
A space shuttle rebuild with MT rules would get along with a humble model 0, too....
Regards,
TE
As Uncle Bob already noted any calculations necessary for navigating/controlling a spacecraft like a space shuttle are fairly simple and could really be accomplished by regular home computers today.
Well, they don't have to mess around weird fictional stuff like gravitic thrusters or jump drives
A space shuttle rebuild with MT rules would get along with a humble model 0, too....
Regards,
TE
But an F-22 and Kite both fly. Using NASA's comps, I think, is a good place to start. I'm not saying it's the end all, just to try to develop and project future tech based on what's currently used.
My hunch, and I'm sure Hunter or Avery will correct me on this, is that when MM wrote the rules originally he was trying to project a "smaller" computer that might be used in the future based on what he saw at Cape Kennedy / Houston on the evening news. That's just a guess on my part.
If the computer rules are broken, then they need fixing in the new T5 rules iteration of Trav.
Just me .02Cr
My hunch, and I'm sure Hunter or Avery will correct me on this, is that when MM wrote the rules originally he was trying to project a "smaller" computer that might be used in the future based on what he saw at Cape Kennedy / Houston on the evening news. That's just a guess on my part.
If the computer rules are broken, then they need fixing in the new T5 rules iteration of Trav.
Just me .02Cr
You might want to peruse GURPS Traveller rules for computers, both in terms of complexity and the complexity of the programs it runs, since that system takes into account both.
You may not agree with them, but it seems like a nice place to start.
Astrogation = jump number + 1 for complexity
RVO (Routine Vehicle Operation) would handle piloting the craft and watching out for debris, other ships etc.
Suffice to say that the basic bridge on a Beowulf could easily handle all the requirements necessary (not there was really any doubt) and still have plenty of processing power left over to handle other routine tasks.
You may not agree with them, but it seems like a nice place to start.
Astrogation = jump number + 1 for complexity
RVO (Routine Vehicle Operation) would handle piloting the craft and watching out for debris, other ships etc.
Suffice to say that the basic bridge on a Beowulf could easily handle all the requirements necessary (not there was really any doubt) and still have plenty of processing power left over to handle other routine tasks.
mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
Between 1987 and 1998 I worked in the Process Control/Security computer department of a 4000+ man coal mine in germany that also had a brand-new 850MW coal-plant on the installation. Our SIEMENS technician was also employed in the Lingen II nuclear power plant. Based on that experience:
</font>
</font>
- There will be no "single, monolytic
computer".
</font>- </font>
- Even for rather mundane systems like our mine a dual-system high-availability cluster with two Computers, Two Drives and a switching logic was required by law. Power plants coupled multiple of these pairs with a voting system to decide the correct results</font>
- Modern airplanes have 2-3 redundant computers, often with different hardware and software to reduce the chance of errors even more</font>
- Most Traveller versions (TNE is the exception) see reserve computers as a means to compensate battle damage. Coupled with the above it is quite resonable to assume that the "base" computer actually is a multi-unit redundant system</font>
- Given the Importance of certain components (Life Support, Fusion) it is likely that those have a local emergency node similar to the S5 MPC and/or manual overrides used in a modern coal plant</font>
- We are not talking workstations or fileservers, we are talking process controll units</font>
- A Flight-Simulator does not need to sample data input from multiple-hundrets of sensors</font>
- A Flight-Simulator is not a multi-process/multi user REAL TIME system with reuqired reaction times below one second</font>
- Data transfer in industrial environments like an engine room needs massiv shielding</font>
- Data gathering/concentration requires a certain element size so you can SECURELY (Bayonet or Screw) fasten the data cabels</font>
- Data collection/transmitting units have similar minimum space requirements</font>
- The data concentrator needed to gather all the data and hand it to the computers can easily have 1000+ data gathering nodes (We had > 2000)</font>
- To optimise data transfer a number of small "data concentrators" (K2010 series) where used, Each an S5 MPC subset</font>
- Secondary systems might exist
</font>- We actually had a totally independent system for the payroll computation</font>
- Material logistics used it's own network or workstations and servers (with redundant drive arrays)</font>
- Performance figures and production control was a third system, a UNIX high-availability cluster of three boxes</font>
Which means the periferals for the computer have a non-zero size. That is called the "bridge percentage", and it changes trivially with increases in processing power. Control for the engines will be a bigger problem than navigating, probably bigger than fire control. But the computer does not change size with the engines, so the Engineering computers will be in a clean room (maybe located on the bridge) but managed as as part of the engineering percentage.
A flight simulator does quite a bit more than a simple navigation program, which was all I was comparing it to. It has to invent the inputs from dozens of sensors and disply them graphicly, which a navigation program doesn't have to do. As for periferal administrative duties, while these may be complex they are not done by the Traveller Ship's Computer without doing your own rules rewrite.
The computer rules work pretty well with pre-1975 computer understanding. It really echoes classics like Heinlein's Starman Jones. But we understand better now.
A flight simulator does quite a bit more than a simple navigation program, which was all I was comparing it to. It has to invent the inputs from dozens of sensors and disply them graphicly, which a navigation program doesn't have to do. As for periferal administrative duties, while these may be complex they are not done by the Traveller Ship's Computer without doing your own rules rewrite.
The computer rules work pretty well with pre-1975 computer understanding. It really echoes classics like Heinlein's Starman Jones. But we understand better now.
