computers

>Brett Slocum commented that Traveller's ship's computers seem highly
>anachronoistic.  I agree.  Advanced technology levels should result in
>computers that are *less* bulky, power-hungry, and costly.  The
Traveller
>rules are hopelessly silly.
>When I design ships for the universe I GM, I substitute the following
>quick rule fix:  shipboard computers have an effective weight of zero
>(justified by assuming the tonnage allocated to the bridge is more than
>sufficient to accomodate a CPU).  Cost of computers drops 20% for each
>TL above the minimum needed to construct a particular model, down to
>20% of original cost (i.e., 4 TL's above minimum), and 5% per TL
>thereafter.  Computers do not explicitly require EP.

The above suggestion sounds rather good, however the rules are
still a little poor in that the traveller computers still cannot do much.
For example the CPU times of human use programs (like library data
and anti-hijack ) shold me zero. The relative amount of time for the
computer to bring up a file for a person to read is minimal, and
Anti Hijack only has to be called when someone want's to open
a door. The door probably has all the hardware required to scan
all the computer has to do is fetch a file from "hard" storage
and compare it to the input. These computers are certainantly
large multi processor jobs so all the computer does is hold the
door untill a processor is free and then speeds the verification
through.

	-Love Kisses and a Neutron Bomb
		-Eric the Finn
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