Tag Archives: star trek

Mobile displays in 2012 vs. imagined future in 1997: PADD tablets treated like sheets of paper on Star Trek Deep Space 9

I always find it interesting to look at future history – that is what people imagined the future would look like years ago. The two screenshots here came from Star Trek Deep Space 9 season 6 episode 9 (Statistical Probabilities) which first aired on November 24, 1997. In 1997, the touch screen Newton was on the wane while the Palm Pilot and Windows CE Handheld PCs were on their way up. Apple’s Newton was probably the closets thing we had to a tablet device.
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iPhone Compared to Star Trek Communicator (STTOS Era Device)

sttoscomm_iphone3g

My daughter and I went to see the new Star Trek movie last night. As a long time Trekker I give the movie a big thumbs up despite the shocking ret-cons (no spoilers). My non-Trekker daughter (she’s never watched an episode of STTOS (Star Trek The Original Series) or previous Star Trek movies) loved it too. I liked it so much, it moved me to find my dusty old STTOS Communicator I was amused to note the iPhone 3G is about the same length and width as the Communicator though the iPhone is much thinner.

Live long and prosper…