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How Star Trek Artists Imagined the iPad... 23 Years Later
MorderVonAllem submitted an incredibly cool article about the computers and set design of Star Trek. If you are into that sort of thing, you're going to really like this one. It says "There are a lot of similarities between Apple's iPad and the mobile computing devices—known as PADDs—used in the Star Trek universe. Ars spoke to designers Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler to find out the thinking and inspiration behind the PADD and how closely the iPad represents a real-life incarnation of that dream."
Perhaps it depends on the level at which you judge things. For me, for something to "resemble an iPad," it needs to have a third party inserted between the developer and the user.
Geordi: "Hey, what if we reroute The Borg's root command through the subspace neutrino beam? Their ship will collapse like a house of balloons!"
Riker: "Checkmate!"
Picard: "Mr. Data, make it so."
Data: "Aye aye, captain." [fingers blur on PADD, then stop. Data just sits there.]
Picard: "Mr. Data?"
Data: "Yes, captain?"
Picard: "Are you ready?!"
Data: "Waiting for software approval by the Ferengi, sir."
Picard: *sigh* "Initiate auto-destruct sequence."
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Well, Steve Jobs does have big ears...
Whereas Microsoft Courier is exactly what the PADD would have been had the Pakleds designed it.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Maybe Al wouldn't have needed to beat on Ziggy all the time on Quantum Leap if he wouldn't cover up the antenna with his cigar hand.
Oh, to casually toss Picard onto my desk...
Trek also predicted g0atse when Spock looked into that secret glowing box and went nuts.
Table-ized A.I.
Another possibility is that, like iPads, Star Trek PADDs could not multitask well or have multiple windows showing at the same time. The piles of PADDs may be an easier way to have a whole bunch of reference materials open and available at the same time.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
...Data: "Aye aye, captain." [fingers blur on PADD, then stop. Data just sits there.]
Picard: "Mr. Data?"
Data: "Yes, captain?"
Picard: "Are you ready?!"
Data: "Custom software deployed sir. Enemy ship collapsing"
How is this possible?
Because of course they are members of the iPhone Enterprise development program and can thus enjoy in-ship distribution... :-)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley