Posted by Commander Ivo Černý (Executive Officer / Chief Science Officer) in Bridge - Programming

Posted by Commander Ivo Černý (Executive Officer / Chief Science Officer) in Bridge - Programming
Ivo stared into the viewscreen while he contemplated what he was about to do next. The stars passing by the ship did not seem to notice, nor did anyone else on the Bridge, who were all pre-occupied with their duties.

The time is now, he thought.

He swiveled slowly back to face the science console, and its myriad lights, switches, buttons, and screens. He pressed one of the manual programming rocker switches in front of the library computer terminal, the switch snapping with a very audible smack. The computer console replied with a boop, and several of the indicators on the special functions processing display lit up.

Satisfied with this result, Ivo pressed three other buttons on the special data processing control panel, which were each acknowledged with a series of smaller noises, click, click, click. The computer responded with a longer beeeeeeeep to indicate that the commands were received and the first stage of the program was probably ready. The conversation between the two of them continued on:

thwick
boo-boo-boop
thwack
boop
click
beep
clack
boop, beep, boo-thwoop-boo-boo-boop, boooooop biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

It was ready. He took a blank record deck from the holder, and slid it into the computer’s input port just under the intercom. Then he pushed one last button, which bobbed up and down again with an obedient click.

The computer responded to this by very dutifully executing the program with enough processing power to make what Ivo referred to colloquially as its “thinking noise”, that oddly mechanical racket that would have sounded retrograde to computing professionals before the age of duotronics.

Now we wait, Ivo thought.

– Ivo Černý, XO/CSO

Lights on the library computer display seemed to dance in rhythm with the noises it made as it continued “thinking.” It sounded roughly like an infinite supply of ball bearings constantly rotating around inside a metalic drum. Or the sound of a thousand pachinko machines, endlessly playing the same games over and over again, but without any of the obnoxious cheer of 21st century Japanese low-stakes gambling culture. Which… was an oddly apt metaphor because in some ways that was actually what the program that Ivo wrote was doing.

He knew it was going to take at least another two or three minutes until the program finished.

– Ivo Černý, XO/CSO

When is that cute yeoman coming by with more coffee? he wondered as the computer still sounded roughly like a dozen IBM Selectric typewriters falling down an infinite concrete staircase. Out of habit, he gave a slight nudge to the bottom of the deck with his left foot, and his chair started rotating rightward. He began glancing at the crew at their stations as his chair spun slowly.

I shouldn’t think of any of them that way, he thought. He felt something about it was improper, though he wasn’t exactly sure why he had taken the fleeting, unspoken description of the yeoman as ‘cute’ so seriously at this particular moment. Perhaps it was because he knew he was using the computer for something frivolous, even though it looked like any other ordinary work that any other science officer might be doing at any given moment.

Ivo felt the urge to yawn coming on, but managed to suppress it before caving into it. It would have been a bad example to set to all of the younger officers on the bridge. I’m still young, he objected. Right?

– Ivo Černý, XO/CSO