Cannot wrap my head around wafer jacks.
- Thread starter gds73
- Start date
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Isn't a USB considered "physical media"? This seems to be a holdover from 70s tech. Swapping out physical media currently is easy and can be done even while skydiving, unless the helmet gets in the way. lol
Edit - In this case, I want to be a robot PC. All of the skills, all of the time. lol
Limpin Legin
Emperor Mongoose
RAW: "The main benefit of the jack is that it is MUCH smaller and more discrete than a hand computer ..." CRB p107
Discuss:
A "modest" computer is one that processes symbols and alphabets at comparatively high speed. It's architecture typically has a memory and a processor.
A Wafer Jack is a cybernetic device that is limited in size by the space available in skull. It processes neural networks much like the brain processes neurons. Such a neural network architecture has numerically weighted neurons and an interconnection network. It doesn't have "digital memory" because everything is stored on neurons.
Switching out a Wafer Jack s/w requires surgery.
Discuss:
A "modest" computer is one that processes symbols and alphabets at comparatively high speed. It's architecture typically has a memory and a processor.
A Wafer Jack is a cybernetic device that is limited in size by the space available in skull. It processes neural networks much like the brain processes neurons. Such a neural network architecture has numerically weighted neurons and an interconnection network. It doesn't have "digital memory" because everything is stored on neurons.
Switching out a Wafer Jack s/w requires surgery.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
No, a wafer jack is a jack for wafers, standard data storage devices (something like a high tech SD card).
CSC, p61:
Yes, and it should be kept on a very abstract level. Trying to figure out the capabilities of computers hundreds or thousands years into the future is doomed to fail.
(That goes for most technology predictions, but when it comes to computers the rules will be outdated within a year or two.)
Given the limitations of the Wafer Jack, I would not be averse to Intelligence Interface being a special interface that allows you to use Expert packages without the usual -1 penalty (Intellect+ if you will). This would give them some advantage over Neural Comms interfaced to discrete computers (which are my goto).
Frankly she can have Expert/1 M-Drive and still get +1 to her M-Drive INT or EDU based skill checks (using 1 of her 4 available bandwidth). Using higher level Expert package only increases the maximum difficulty of task the Expert system can assist with (It will only provide +1). Expert/1 can only help with difficulty 10 or lower task.I appreciate the responses. I cannot decided if I am beginning to understand how to use them or I am even more confused.Maybe I should have asked to explain it like I am 5 or like I am in my 80s and don't really understand computers.
Possible example.
My Engineer PC with Wafer Jack TL12, has M Drive 1. So if she has a wafer that has the expert M-drive 3 installed she cannot use it because it uses too much bandwidth, but if she has a wafer, expert M-drive 2 she can and it gives her a +1 to any M-drive checks? Is this mostly correct
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
I always wondered why Traveller decided computers improve at every TL after 5.
I think the whole computer paradigm should be revisited.
mechanical electronic photonic organic
An electronic based computer is only good for so many TLs etc.
CT Robots began exploring linear, parallel , and then synaptic processors, perhaps that distinction could come back?
I think the whole computer paradigm should be revisited.
mechanical electronic photonic organic
An electronic based computer is only good for so many TLs etc.
CT Robots began exploring linear, parallel , and then synaptic processors, perhaps that distinction could come back?
Moore's law. Though to be honest progress isn't nearly fast enough. In fairness the progress is probably slowed by bloatware. Processors have moved on significantly but software has not kept pace as we just use the extra capacity for useless crap and lazy design.
If you try to tie it to pseudo-science you have to invent it and make it consistent. Handwavium is universally valent.
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AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
CT didn't care about such details. One computer might be electronic, another photonic. The rating is important, the operating principle isn't.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
They still improved at every TL, and we were told how their capabilities changed in terms of tonnage, CPU, storage, and relative bonus to activity.
Over time some oddities crept in - a model 1 computer being laptop size at a certain TL rather than 1 displacement ton.
I find the MgT bandwidth model to be... lacking.
Over time some oddities crept in - a model 1 computer being laptop size at a certain TL rather than 1 displacement ton.
I find the MgT bandwidth model to be... lacking.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
It needs to be trashed and redesigned from the ground up.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
Sure, why wouldn't they?
Sure, at a much higher TL. Why not?
It's the same as CT?
CT m/1 = MgT m/5,
CT m/2 = MgT m10, etc.
MgT is a little bit more detailed with retrotech and smaller computers.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
But seriously folks, why couldn't a wafer jack have a rewritable memory capacity with a wireless connection.
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Suddenly you're hungry. Astroburgers seems the perfect meal right now.
The ads... the ads...
Suddenly you're hungry. Astroburgers seems the perfect meal right now.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Going by the short story Names there is a stigma to being wafer jacked, but they are too useful not to have.
In T5 there is a wafer "headset" that provides the same interface with wafers but without the needs to be hardwired yourself.
As to wireless, the wafer jack would need a transmitter/receiver.
And very soon you are in Infinity/Altered Carbon territory.
Note that the new Singularity campaign will include digitising PCs and downloading them into host bodies - clones, synthetics, androids, robots, battle dress...
so it looks like the Rubicon has been jetskied across...
In T5 there is a wafer "headset" that provides the same interface with wafers but without the needs to be hardwired yourself.
As to wireless, the wafer jack would need a transmitter/receiver.
And very soon you are in Infinity/Altered Carbon territory.
Note that the new Singularity campaign will include digitising PCs and downloading them into host bodies - clones, synthetics, androids, robots, battle dress...
so it looks like the Rubicon has been jetskied across...
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The things that make up computers are software and hardware.
Software tells it how to behave, and hardware the physical limitations of it's performance.
Bandwidth would be how much can be done in a specific time window, which should be some combination of what can kept compartmentalized, compromised by what needs to move through various bottlenecks.
At this point, storage might be what can be kept in random access memory, not what's on the hard drives.
You could complicate it by commandeering unused space in the hard drive for random access memory overflow, and just using parts of the programme that actually are relevant to the tasks being performed.
Or, in Traveller, everything is on one chip.
That's why, it takes up no discernible volume.
Software tells it how to behave, and hardware the physical limitations of it's performance.
Bandwidth would be how much can be done in a specific time window, which should be some combination of what can kept compartmentalized, compromised by what needs to move through various bottlenecks.
At this point, storage might be what can be kept in random access memory, not what's on the hard drives.
You could complicate it by commandeering unused space in the hard drive for random access memory overflow, and just using parts of the programme that actually are relevant to the tasks being performed.
Or, in Traveller, everything is on one chip.
That's why, it takes up no discernible volume.
To Tha Moon!
Cosmic Mongoose
Someone posted this a while back. Thought it might help.
So let me open Pandora's Shipping Crate and ask a question...
Many of us have read 'Agent of the Imperium' and it's extensive use of wafer jack technology. Now, IMTU, I limit the use of wafer jacks to cerebral skills. My reasoning for this is simple: some skills require physical mastery and fitness. No matter how many levels of Survival skill you may have, if you're a fat bureaucrat [I plead the fifth, yer honner....], you have to have a body hardened against extreme conditions and willpower to expend the energy to do what is necessary to survive. Another example, you can wafer jack...
Many of us have read 'Agent of the Imperium' and it's extensive use of wafer jack technology. Now, IMTU, I limit the use of wafer jacks to cerebral skills. My reasoning for this is simple: some skills require physical mastery and fitness. No matter how many levels of Survival skill you may have, if you're a fat bureaucrat [I plead the fifth, yer honner....
], you have to have a body hardened against extreme conditions and willpower to expend the energy to do what is necessary to survive. Another example, you can wafer jack...