I rose to the bait of engaging this thread tho I wasn't really sure what the thread's purpose was or is. The first post is a statement, doesn't pose any questions that I can see but I took it to mean a prompt for discussion. But what were you actually trying to achieve by starting this thread?
Rewriting the rules is fine, I'm doing it myself. Each time I take on a particular part tho I am reminded that a separation between Traveller the rules and Traveller the setting needs to happen. To be relevant to this thread, the setting is what described the computers in Traveller the rules and was written 40 years ago with a view that looked backward rather than forward. Rules as I understand them should be there to help describe how the players interact with the world the GM has created. They should therefore be independent of the setting. I've recently seen Traveller described as a period sci-fi game, this has greatly eased my vexation with Traveller as a setting as I now see it in that context. The setting tho bares little resemblance to how I want my sci-fi world to be. Ergo, the rules have to go, have to become as neutral as possible. The surgeon's laser scalpel is out and oh so very sharp!
There are currently several threads here that to me, all point in a similar direction. They also highlight the incongruities that Traveller has layered together under what's known as canon. That canon is fractured and contradictory is just out and out frustrating. I guess you could say that it makes for great debating on a forum but I'm damned if I can see it as great material for gaming.
Back to the thread.
I talked with a friend of mine last night over a pint or two and a game of chess. He's currently putting an instrument into a satellite so he knows way more than I do about this stuff. His explanation in my layman's terms is that each part of the space craft has it's own computer, actually two, both identical, one acting as the other's back up. There's also a central computer (with the same identical backup) that overseas the whole craft and how each other computer reports back to mission control.
As a format I think we agree (with the exception of their being a computer in the overseeing role) that each ship's system would have it's own computer but where I also disagree is with the idea that they are not programmable. A computer is there to run it's software, (be it soft, firm, hardwired or whatever you want to call it) but without it, its just a box of components. Software needs to be flexible to cope with new situations, Hubble's software was rewritten to compensate for an out of spec mirror. Without the ability to change the software a machine becomes inflexible which could lead to disaster. With regard to their being no one on board a ship with the knowledge to reprogramme it, I disagree. The computer would have that knowledge. It would be able to "know" what was happening in it's systems and have an expert system of such complexity that it would be able to readjust to circumstances as needed. I can also see how human's would communicate needs to the computer and it would write the code to meet the need.
There's plenty of talk about AI but we seem to stop short of a discussion about expert systems. The computer of the future I see will be an expert on whatever we want it to be an expert on and it will have the ability to self learn on that subject.
