COmputer power

> 400,000 Kw/month = 400 MW/month = 13.33 MW a day

This sounds more like a rate of power consumption change.  `MW'
is a measure of power consumption, so what is `MW per day'?

Do you mean `MW-hours per day'?  Then 13 MW-hr/day would be about
0.5 MW.  No wonder it needs monster cooling systems!  Without cooling,
the temperature would probably rise toward about 500'C until it
died.

Of course, this discussion is assuming that we are concerned with the
`supercomputer' range.  What if you want something smaller?  What sort
of processing power can you get out of a 100W desktop computer at
various TLs?  I would find it quite conceivable to run a starship off
a computer that, in 2 TL or so, would be considered a `pocket' computer.
Based on MegaTraveller, in which TL6 is ~1950, and TL8 is ~1990, this is
certainly the case.  The progression in the starship computer tables seems
*faster* at higher TLs, with a 2-fold increase in `maximum CP input' and
30% increase in `CP multiplier' from TL6 to TL8, but a jump of 2 TLs from
TL12 to TL14 gives a 100-fold increase in `maximum CP input', and more
than 100% increase in CP multiplier.  Thus, if a pocket computer at TL8
is more than a match for the TL6 supercomputer, it would seem that a TL14
pocket computer should exceed the capabilities of a TL12 supercomputer by
an even greater amount.

This is partially borne out by the entry in the Imperial Encyclopedia,
where a TL11 hand computer "provides services of a supercomputer
(equivalent to Model/1 in computing power)".  Now, I would expect it to
be much better than that!  Model/1 is the 1950's supercomputer.  TL11 is
post-2100 projected technology (Meson guns, gravitic structures become
commonplace, Jump-2 drives, and reactionless thrusters).

Nevertheless, the precedent has been set - hand computers of higher TL
*can* serve as lower-TL supercomputers.  In MT, a vehicle needs to cost
more than ~50 MCr before it needs a Model/2.  For smaller vehicles, the
computer can take up a considerable amount of the power, space and cost
of the total.  So, just replace it with a TL11 hand computer, at 1/10000th
the volume, 1/1000th the mass, and 1/900th the cost, with negligible
power consumption.


(MT gripe: Have you noticed that TL12 `solar cells' extract 60 times more
power from sunlight than is actually present?  Even TL6 cells extract 3
times more.  But that's cancelled out by the much-too-small surface areas
available for large ships.)

- --
Tim Little