TL 9 microchips?

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by whswhs

If you're going to write science fiction set in the future, though, you probably have to predict technological progress—and accept the risk of getting it wrong.

But if you're clever, you just specify what a gadget can do and handwave exactly how it does it, using extrapolation of existing scientific principles. If you're doing space opera you can replace the extrapolation with dramatically plausible technobabble.

Giving actual numbers for a gadget, other than basic weights and dimensions, makes it very likely that your predictions will be comically incorrect in just a few decades (but with an infinitesimal chance that you're right and make way more off of patents or stocks than you're ever going to earn from your writing).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

But if you're clever, you just specify what a gadget can do and handwave exactly how it does it, using extrapolation of existing scientific principles. If you're doing space opera you can replace the extrapolation with dramatically plausible technobabble.

Giving actual numbers for a gadget, other than basic weights and dimensions, makes it very likely that your predictions will be comically incorrect in just a few decades (but with an infinitesimal chance that you're right and make way more off of patents or stocks than you're ever going to earn from your writing).

On the other hand, simple narrative descriptions will often imply actual numbers. See for example Heinlein's Starman Jones, where astrogation problems are entered into a computer by looking up the decimal numbers in a table of decimal to binary conversions and manually entering the binary numbers!

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by whswhs

On the other hand, simple narrative descriptions will often imply actual numbers. See for example Heinlein's Starman Jones, where astrogation problems are entered into a computer by looking up the decimal numbers in a table of decimal to binary conversions and manually entering the binary numbers!

That was in a setting with strict trade guilds though, so I wonder how much of that was strictly necessary vs a powerful guild protecting its monopoly and its members jobs.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by whswhs

On the other hand, simple narrative descriptions will often imply actual numbers. See for example Heinlein's Starman Jones, where astrogation problems are entered into a computer by looking up the decimal numbers in a table of decimal to binary conversions and manually entering the binary numbers!

Of course in real life from 2004-2008 ot thereabouts I did mortar FDC by putting a pencil dot on a rotatable piece of lucite, rotated the lucite until it was aligned with the direction of fire, read the deflection off a vernier scal (designed in the late 1800s) printed on the board and then looked up the charge and elevation in a big book of tables. In 2008 we got handheld ballistic mortar computers, and were still required to check the results by plotting board. I then often was expected to give the fire command by talking into a unpowered bakelite handset last manufactured probably about the time you, Bill, were born which then would transmit by conductance on.a copper wire by the same technology children used to use soup cans and string for. So while Bob, Navy man that he was, was certainly far off about the specifics, he was relating something essential about the military institutional mindset.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This will only become clear in retrospect. It's a serious mistake for RPGs to try to predict technological progress. Classic Traveller attempted to do this, and there's a Murphy's Rules cartoon from 1981, pointing out that some then-current computers exceeded the capabilities of Traveller ones.

Traveller didn't give sizes in real world terms, though. I understand that the authors knew that the model they used was obsolescent even when written, but felt it made for interesting game choices (do we run the improved aim software, or the improved dodge software?) Later supplements and edition went for a more abstract approach.

OTOH, in 2300AD some of those same authors did make the mistake of listing the storage size of the hand computers and their data chips (200MB, as I recall).

One thing that I remember is a comment by a guy who worked on oil rig IT. He said that he laughed at Traveller's huge computers until he saw the size of the controlling electronics on rigs. Being made to take abuse and bad weather and to control heavy machinery they themselves were very heavy and there were many boxes over the whole rig.

[Tom Mazanec]

And BTW, what does "microtech" mean in the listing? We have had 1 micron chips since 1984 or so. Or does that mean the whole system is micron-sized or smaller?

[Stormcrow]

Unless you're buying separate microchips, there isn't really much to do between them and TLs. I mean, what are the GURPS stats of a 2 nm microchip? The question doesn't even have much meaning. What effect would introducing 2 nm microchips to otherwise TL8 computers have? Maybe adding Compact or Fast features, but upgrading to a whole new TL?

At best, you could draw a line and say "this is when chip X is introduced, and this is where TL9 computers start, so chip X is a TL9 technology," but it doesn't really have any effect on the game. It is, at best, fluff.

[Fred Brackin]

The best I can say is that we'll be TL9 when voice controlled smartwatches with 1 tB storage and laptops with 10 TB are the commercial standard.

Right now we're just barely flirting wiuth voice controlled smartwatches and lap tops with _1_TB storage only became standard a few years ago. We may not be that far past full maturity for TL8.

Of course, this does mean we may have achieved TL9 when software bloat has reached the point where lap tops _need_ 10 TB. :)

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Right now we're just barely flirting wiuth voice controlled smartwatches and lap tops with _1_TB storage only became standard a few years ago. We may not be that far past full maturity for TL8.

From what I can see, the trend in low-mid range laptops is to make them smaller and cheaper (so they're tablets with cruddy keyboards) rather than to increase memory (both storage and RAM).

I keep getting told that 'laptops are replacing desktops', and for general business use they do seem to be, insofar as they're replacing the desktop computer but are still plugging into a desktop's worth of screens, keyboards, mice, etc. so really they're using up a desktop's footprint, but you have the option of using them away from your deck (with a little screen, cramped keyboard, etc.).

As I have no need for that portability, I'm sticking with my desktop, which is much cheaper for the performance I'm getting and has far more storage space (and plenty of room for more drives if I need them).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Unless you're buying separate microchips, there isn't really much to do between them and TLs. I mean, what are the GURPS stats of a 2 nm microchip? The question doesn't even have much meaning. What effect would introducing 2 nm microchips to otherwise TL8 computers have? Maybe adding Compact or Fast features, but upgrading to a whole new TL?

The progressive shrinking of microchips does map to a GURPS statistic: if you make it smaller, you reduce the weight required for a computer of a given Complexity, or, conversely, you increase the possible Complexity for a computer of a given weight. And since power requirements are scaled to weight, you also decrease the power consumption that supports a given Complexity.

Complexity is coarsely scaled, with +1 to Complexity roughly equating to 10x CPU size. So just going from 3 nm to 2 nm may not cross the boundary from one Complexity level to another. But at some point that crossing will happen.

Standard GURPS tends to assume that you only get +1 or +2 to Complexity per TL. But in actual history, over the roughly four decades of TL8, we've seen an improvement in chip size by several orders of magnitude. That's why I suggested in GURPS High-Tech: Electricity and Electronics that TL8 have four steps.