[Worldbuilding] Divergent, retro and other 'not of this world' Computers and Software

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

Okay, I have a reasonably formed picture of what computers are like in my current setting, but I guess it never hurts to ask the hive mind for more ideas. Also, probably no harm if this topic is expanded to all sorts of non-Homeline computers and software. I'll just integrate any ideas that would fit ÆS, while anybody else can pick up posted ideas for alternate histories / aliens / whatever. Oh, and the list of does NOT necessarily imply that they are used together. So, here goes:

Exponential increase in Complexity from linear increase in size. This option is used in Æthereal Sun.

Dedicated, largely hardcoded, but robust, reliable and bug-free computers. (Traveller.)

More architectural diversity: a world with a dozen (or more) lazily competing architectures, each with different advantages and different software. On one hand, standardisation is dead on arrival; on the other, stuff is made to be a lot more tolerant of accepting new protocols and the like (to quote Unix Hater's Handbook, 'you’ll discover ways of rewiring sendmail’s insides so that “@#$@$^%<<<@#) at @$%#^!” is a valid e-mail address'). (This is partially true in ÆS.)

'University' instead of 'corporate' approach to software copyrights (which may or may not match the 'early UNIX' approach): most software is written by a guild's local computer experts for the guild's dominant architecture, financed by the guild based on current needs; piracy exists (where people get both access to and uses for said software), but is not seen as a big deal as in our world (bothering to enforce software copyrights is more trouble than the potential gains due to several factors in such a setting). (This is somewhat true in ÆS.)

Partially interconnected social networks and messengers: in our world, various government and phone companies, both stationary and mobile, managed to interconnect that we can call anyone anywhere. In this setting, there's a roughly 80% chance that any two social networks or instant messenger services have a direct interconnectivity, allowing their users to chat with minimal limitations (e.g. possible inability to send files directly). (This is the case in ÆS, and I have no idea why not in our world.)

Awaiting your ideas.
Thanks in advance!

[robertsconley]

Read up on Analog computers. This was quickly neglected in favor of digital computer in our history but who to say what would happen in some alternate tech progression including hybrids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by robertsconley

Read up on Analog computers. This was quickly neglected in favor of digital computer in our history but who to say what would happen in some alternate tech progression including hybrids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer

It's also worth noting that vacuum tubes don't need to be tall - it's the width that matters. So you can miniaturize vacuum tube computers quite a bit. 1mm tall slices, but 1cm wide and 0.5-1cm long. Can make for practical vacuum tube mainframes in a few cubic meters.

And vacuum tube computers can be analogue, digital, or composite!

[dcarson]

Read the section on TIMMs (Thermoionic Integrated MicroModule) at http://www.radiomuseum.org/forum/usa...tinkertoy.html . Tubes built using washers and plates so they are tougher then normal and the whole package is sealed and heated so no glass tubes or fragile heater wires.

[Daigoro]

If you look at some Neal Stephenson novels, he comes up with a few different types of computer.

IIRC, in Diamond Age there's a Turing complete machine based on gears and chains, and ...

Spoiler:  

... it ends with some kind of mutating viral computation (as in a biological flu-like virus) that infects a large number of people, who have to come together again and share their evolved viral load for the computation to emit a result.

Another type of computer that I read about some time ago has logic gates based on rods that rotate and push back and forward, aligned at right angles to each other. Rotating exposes a hole in the rod, allowing a perpendicular rod to poke through it, thus giving various logical inputs and outputs. It could be built at a macro scale, but I think the idea was it would be the basis for nano-scale computing, avoiding some of the problems that electronic computers have at that scale.

There's also DNA computing, which could be used for solving large-number factorisations and thus breaking encryption. The key is programmed on one strand of DNA, and it is mixed with many possible solutions, one pair of which will bond with it and reveal the two factors (or something like that).

There are also logic gates based on chemicals in solution, which can phase change between different colours, or based on lasers which pass through filters whose polarisation is changed by another input beam.

For retro, logic gates could be constructed in hydrodynamic or pneumatic systems, with gates, valves and balloons that open or close on various inputs. They could be built as a room full of copper piping, or perhaps the even canals on Mars worked as a planet-sized logic machine.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

It's also worth noting that vacuum tubes don't need to be tall - it's the width that matters. So you can miniaturize vacuum tube computers quite a bit. 1mm tall slices, but 1cm wide and 0.5-1cm long. Can make for practical vacuum tube mainframes in a few cubic meters.

And vacuum tube computers can be analogue, digital, or composite!

Don't vacuum tubes burn out and need to be replaced?

I had an idea some time ago, for one of the tech paradigms in my space opera setting, to involve boards of miniaturized vacuum tubes (each a bit smaller than rice grains) that are externally mounted on the computer, e.g. a hacker's cyberdeck, and maybe with a little built-in fault tolerance so that if any one single tube burns out, the board still works fine (each computer or deck has many such boards, from several to hundreds), and if 2-4 tubes burn out that board still works but at increasingly reduced efficiency. Indicator LEDs turn on to indicate the severity of need for replacement, and someone them manually has to watch and replace as needed, e.g. the hacker's assistent.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Don't vacuum tubes burn out and need to be replaced?

Yes, but this mostly happens at power-on. Powering off and on is hard on electronics in general, but the effect is much larger for vacuum tubes. They also use a lot more power, mostly for the heaters that allow them to work, and these two things together make portable equipment hard.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Yes, but this mostly happens at power-on. Powering off and on is hard on electronics in general, but the effect is much larger for vacuum tubes. They also use a lot more power, mostly for the heaters that allow them to work, and these two things together make portable equipment hard.

Powering off and on in what sense, exactly?

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Don't vacuum tubes burn out and need to be replaced?

Originally Posted by johndallman

Yes, but this mostly happens at power-on. Powering off and on is hard on electronics in general, but the effect is much larger for vacuum tubes. They also use a lot more power, mostly for the heaters that allow them to work, and these two things together make portable equipment hard.

It's worth noting that, for commercial tube amplifiers for performance halls, it's cheaper to leave them on for 12hours unused than to turn them off and restart them. Large tubes can draw 10-20 times their operational power during warmup, and for large tube amps, warm up can take well over an hour before finally leveling off at working temp. My tiny 3-tube Fender takes 30 minutes to warm up. 45 if it's been in the car. (But nothing sounds quite like the distortion of a tube amp and an electric guitar.)

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by robertsconley

Read up on Analog computers. This was quickly neglected in favor of digital computer in our history but who to say what would happen in some alternate tech progression including hybrids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer

I saw a WWII fire-control computer training film that I think someone posted on these forums a couple of months back. It was fascinating what could be done with rotating cams cut to different mathematical curves.

ETA: I should've read the link before posting.
Here's a fluid-logic computer- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC_Computer.
And here's one 1953 training film- http://youtu.be/s1i-dnAH9Y4.