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Summary: family fun
Review: The Bermuda Family of Arizona: ======================== The Computers of Star Trek is an awesome book. My father and grandmother are really into Star Trek, and they've even taken me to some Star Trek conventions. My sister and I saw the authors of The Computers of Star Trek in Pasadena at the Grand Slam Convention. I couldn't wait to tell them how much my whole family likes this book. We're thinking of buying a second copy because we all like it so much. I don't know much about computers, I'm just a kid. My father is disabled and knows less than I do about computers. My grandmother is afraid of computers. My sister's a math genius. She's older than I am. But we love this book. The authors clearly love Star Trek as much as we do. We like the way they describe the different series, like The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Voyager. It's really interesting.
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Summary: Excellent Book
Review: The Computers of Star Trek was an absolutely fabulous read with just the right mix of Star Trek, humor and technical extrapolation.
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Summary: THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ FOR ANY STAR TREK FAN!!!
Review: This book is the perfect gift for anyone interested in Star Trek, Computers or both. It covers everything involving computers on Star Trek, from Data to the Borg to the holodecks. The book has just been published and is now available. Here are just a few of the great advance comments the book has received ---"For the computer illiterate, the Star Trek savvy and all combinations in between, The Computers of Star Trek is not only a painless examination of the history and future of computers but a highly entertaining one as well." -- Walter Koenig ---- "The Computers of Star Trek is a fun-filled tour of the technology of Star Trek.". -- Howard Frank, former chairman of DARPA (Department of Defense Advance Planning Agency) ---- "The Computers of Star Trek is a must for Star Trek fans and anyone curious about the future of computers." -- Clifford Pickover, author of Surfing Through Hyperspace ---- "Gresh and Weinberg have written a funny and amazing book about a hidden world of Trek." -- Matt Costello, author of The Seventh Guest computer game ---- "It's the first must-read computer manual." -- Dr. E.C. Krupp, director of Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles ---- Order it now for Holiday delivery!
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Summary: The Computers of Star Trek
Review: This book was very interesting and very informative. It was the first Star Trek book that I have ever read and it makes me want to read all of them. Until now I have never been a big fan of Star Trek. This book fascinated me by the amount of work involved for any of the computer programs involved in space travel.
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Summary: Learn About Computers The Fun Way
Review: This is a nice overview of computing technology, where we began, where we are now, and where we may be down the road. The comparisons to Star Trek technology was interesting to me as an old Star Trek fan. The authors point out very clearly that the computers of Star Trek have evolved through the decades, and various series, as our knowledge and capabilities in the real world have grown over the years, and we are about to catch up to the talking and reasoning computers portrayed in the original series, perhaps in a handful more years. Later Star Trek series used more advanced computers, even holodecks, these systems will take longer to realize in the real world (physical laws allowing), however, as Gresh and Weinberg explain, most of it won't take until the 24th century to take place. In this book you can learn a lot about computers and computing without becoming bored, and no, you will not be an expert in the field or anything like that, but you will find out that things are advancing rapidly right now. Some of the computer technology shown in the four Star Trek series is already out of date, especially in the original series where those computers resemble large mainframe 1st or second generation computers using vacuum tubes or discrete transistors, and this is a reflection of when the various series were made, from the 1960's to the present. The authors also note that Star Trek is poor at using nanotechnology in the episodes, and how, Gresh and Weinberg explain, microscopic helpers will actually pervade our bodies and keep us healthy and heal wounds and allow us to communicate with others much faster. I did find the chapter on the android Data interesting, the authors believe that something like Data should be possible in the distant future, but the authors explain that much of the computing technology of Star Trek simply won't happen as envisioned in the various series, and that Star Trek is mostly about a projection of our culture three hundred years into the future. But as Spock might say, "fascinating reading". Indeed!
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Summary: The Computers of Star Trek
Review: This is one of the top Star Trek books written. The authors have taken a fascinating look which will be of interest to "Trekkies" and non-Trekkies alike.
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Summary: Book has little to say, ends up being overcritical
Review: This series of books (The <fill-in-the-blank> of Star Trek) may be winding down. Unfortunately, the main thing you can say about the computers of Star Trek is that the show's creators showed an extraordinarily lack of vision in that regard: even the Enterprise-D computer is clearly a deluxe, sixties-style mainframe and not the network of computers we would expect today. Clearly, many of the issues are for dramatic reasons: you can't have the computer fighting the battles nor people communicating with the computers through thought alone. The latter would be tedious to watch and the former would take all the interest out of it. Regardless, the book, while interesting to read, comes off as critical and even shrill as a result - not nearly as affirming or interesting a read as, say, The Physics of Star Trek.
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Summary: Far from my first choice
Review: What one might call the field of 'Star Trek non-fiction' has boomed since the 1995 publication of Dr. Lawrence Krauss's "The Physics of Star Trek". Now, we have books exploring many of the real-world issues presented in the Star Trek franchise, from issues of hard-science like biology, to social-science issues such as the depiction of race and gender. And then there is this book. Judging from the number of glowing reviews already present on Amazon, there are plenty of people who truly admired and appreciated this book. But if you come to this book after reading Dr. Krauss's two outstanding works, as I did, you may find yourself oddly disappointed. First off, the tone seems wrong. While "The Physics of Star Trek" and "Beyond Star Trek" covered some pretty serious terrain in physics, Dr. Krauss's tone was one of an amiable expert communicating with an interested, non-technical audience. The tone presented by these authors occasionally borders on that of computer support people you talk to on the telephone--convinced that they already have the answers and that only your ignorance of the issues prevents you from agreeing with them (such as their frequent early repetition of their pet theory of 'body networks', where at some point in the future everyone will have nano-sized computers distrubuted throughout their bodies which will be able to communicate seamlessly with the computers contained in any other body). Most of the pictures in the book are simple structural diagrams unfamiliar to those who haven't studied computer science. There is even the equivalent of two published pages of VRML code in the chapter on the Holodeck (and if you don't know that VRML stands for Virtual Reality Markup Language, the code will mean nothing to you at all). Rather than a general-interest book, "Computers of Star Trek" seems like a book written by insiders for insiders, no hoi palloi invited. Also, while the authors are doubtless knowledgeable in their chosen fields, they (or their editors) occasionally show a surprising disdain for basic research. The Amazon review by ST:Voyager's own Rick Sternbach shows one such instance. Another comes from the above-mentioned 'body network' idea--unless the authors intend for us to be continually plugged in to a network jack, the computers of our 'body network' will have to emit electromagnetic radiation to communicate with one another; radiation that would kill us, either quickly (by killing our cells directly) or slowly (by mutating our cells into cancerous melanoma). This book would have been significantly improved had the authors read other "__ of Star Trek" books in advance. The authors do have some interesting things to say, and if you're the sort who's going to buy all of these 'ST non-fiction' books anyway, then this review shouldn't deter you. But if you're new to the genre and looking for someplace to start, this would not be the book I'd recommend.
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Summary: Wow!
Review: Whew! I just finished reading this book! What a read! Anyone interested in Star Trek OR computers should read this book right away! The Computers of Star Trek delivers so much information (which is very interesting information, not "boring" as the so clever and imaginative "bobbyelephant" would have you believe)that you simply cannot put it down until you are done reading it.
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Summary: A great review from PUBLISHERS WEEKLY!
Review: With scores of books attempting to parse the minutiae of Star Trek, coming upon a book with the focus and proficiency of The Computers of Star Trek is a delight. Coder and Web site designer Lois Gresh and veteran SF author and editor Robert Weinberg (who together wrote the SF novel, The Termination Node) collaborate in imagining what a real 24th century mainframe might be made of, while pointing out how the original show's conceptions reflected outdated '60s ideas about computing. They answer such questions as "What's a Nanoprocessor?" speculate on how security and navigation might be conceptualized; and try to piece together how the holodeck and the android name Data, both from one of the show's later incarnations, might work. Clear and direct without pandering, the book will appeal to techies and Trekkies (rarely mutually exclusive groups) alike. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, Jan 31, 2000
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