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Subject:   Traveller-digest V1996 #227
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Traveller-digest            Tuesday, 9 July 1996        Volume 1996 : Number 227

(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

         1. Re: Hand Computers
         2. Re: Exactly what do EMPs affect?
         3. Re: Hand Computers
         4. Money (was Re: Hand Computers)
         5. Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #190
         6. Corn Dogs?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Darryl Adams <dtadams@ar.ar.com.au>
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 18:23:47 +1000
Subject: Re: Hand Computers

On Mon, 8 Jul 1996, Joe Walsh wrote:

> I was thinking along the lines of some economies not having free-floating 
> currency.  Perhaps put some on the gold standard (or somesuch) and make 
> others with state-mandated exchange levels.  Still others could have 
> exchange going only one way (from other currencies to theirs, but not 
> from theirs to others).  Exchange can be a fascinating study, I just 
> never took the opportunity to apply it to play.
> 
> 
My .2c on the matter.

The Impirium in year 0 will be imposing a new callender for all member 
worlds, as well other Imperial standards. One of which will be th value 
of the Imperial credit. 

The situation with member states using this new monetary system will be 
chaotic, mainly because of communication lags. The system we have now 
(where currency is speculated on in terms of percieved supply and demand 
of different currency) is truely unworkable (news that can have influence 
on currency prices will be a minimum 7 days old, progressing longer as 
you leave Capital/Core). 

So, a compramise must be reached. We know that Cleon and his successors 
got a kick out of Iridium, so why not make  the Imperial Credit = 1 gram 
of Iridium?

Local currencies can either be pegged to the Imperial Credit, while 
others can be based on the demand for thier currency on the open market. 
As long as the Imperial Credit is locked, the free wheeling of member 
states can continue, but Interstellar trade can be compared to a standard.



>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
Darryl Adams                                       

dtadams@ar.com.au
 
"But as a Mistral employee once told me,
Your only as good as your fans"	        	TISM : Play Mistral for Me 


------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:06:39 PST
Subject: Re: Exactly what do EMPs affect?

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> EMP produces a potential voltage that travels wave-like, that is, it's
> directional. I cannot remember exact numbers (is there a nuclear weapon
> physicist doctor in the house?) but lets suppose, for example, that the
> potential is 1000 Volts per centimeter. (I think this is low.)
>
> Notice that unlike electicity of popular coneption, EMPs are
> directional. They will travel along a wire in a certain direction.
> Sharp right angles can *throw off* an EMP, depending on the conductor.
> However, the EMP path does not need the classic conductor. At very high
> voltage potentials, most materials will conduct, even insulators.

They don't help with the induced voltage. The reason for lots of turns
is to reduce coupling between the wire and the pulse.

> Using a susceptibility analysis, EMP-resistant electronics can be
> designed by providing channels for the EMP to move through. The
> combination of geometry and insulation an provide reasonable protection
> against EMP effects. Stuff like shielded opto-isolators which have
> sharp right angles can provide protection from antenna-collected
> EMP-energy on the outside of a spacecraft to the electronics inside.
> (Current technology). Some protection can be gained by making circuits
> resistant to large transients, really large. I suspect that highly
> improved insulators are also present at high tech level as well.

Actually, there's a lot of gear that will hardly notice an EMP.
Thermionic devices (aka "tubes" or "valves") will at worst just
equalize potential vias a spark and then continue working.

Semiconductors are vulnerable because the juntions are equivalent to a
capacitor with a *really* low plate seperation. The high voltage
destroys the junction. It require almost no current to do this (thus
the precautions against static electricity).

> What's effected? Anything electronic (current technology), that is,
> anything relying on electricity for operation.

Not true. For example, the ignition in an automobile is not afected
noticeably if it is the old style coil-condenser-rotor type. Modern
units are vulnerable, because the parts are susceptible to high voltage
at the wrong places. An old fashioned electric stove would still work,
but the clock might not. Etc..

> My canon is that *any* fighting vessel designed to be used in or around
> nuclear weapon warfare will have EMP protection built into the design.
> Newer current-technology military weapon systems have EMP-protection
> required.
>
> Even the TL6 stuff of the '60s had some limited EMP protection.

One little known technology developed specifically to be immune to EMP
was TIMMs (Thermally Integrated Micro Modules). They used "old"
technology. Specifically tubes, resistors, inductors and capacitors.
The tubes were flat cylinders about the size of a dime. The outer rim
was the anode, the center was the cathode. Any grids were circles of
"bars" between the anode and cathode. There was no filament. The tubes
were made of things like tungsten and tantalum. Ditto for the inductors
wiring and capacitors. Insulation was ceramic. 

These things were constructed as solid blocks, in 3D. The only empty
spaces were the vacuum in the tubes. And they were pretty small. They
were extremely rugged. They dispensed with the need for filaments to
heat the cathodes of the tubes (that's how most tubes fail) by heating
the whole module to a dull red heat! This wasn't that hard as on
shipboard you can afford the insulation and slight extra power drain.
And onboard airplanes, you have a ready source of both heat and power
in the jet engines.

These things are actually *less* bulky than pre-IC semiconductor
circuitry. While there are limits on how small you can make them (due
to limits on tubes), they'd still be capable of being small enough to
let you replace a lot of electronic gear with them without much of a
penalty. (I suspect an IBM 360 equivanet could be built into something
the size of a refrigerator)

BTW, If you managed to create a computer capable of hosting the virus
using TIMMs, the virus couldn't infect the normal way. TIMMs operate at
a temp that'd *kill* the virus. So it'd have to re-write itself to run
on that processor, and trick the CPU into running it.

It's unlikely that these would be common, but some lower tech
civilizations might use them. They're a lot more resistant to radiation
than semiconductors, and for early ships they might be used instead of
semiconductors for the "dumber" parts of the system. They'd go great
with the fission powered ship with the NERVA type engine.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 20:44:12 PST
Subject: Re: Hand Computers

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> Joe Walsh wrote:
>
>> >    Myomers. Electricity makes them contract just like muscles.
>> 
>> Thanks for posting that.  I learn something new every day. :)
>
> Myomer's were the basic technological unit that made Battle Mech's 
> possible in Mechwarrior.  I don't beleive that they really exist, they 
> may though.

I seem to recall reading about some polymers (or something like that)
that contracts under electrical stimulation. But it's way too delicate
and doesn't contract by all that much.

So we have something that might develop into myomers, but we don't have
them right now.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 20:56:05 PST
Subject: Money (was Re: Hand Computers)

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> On Sun, 7 Jul 1996 14:59:02 -0500 (CDT), Joe Walsh wrote:
>
>> Okay, to do the requisite tie-in with Traveller:  I was surprised when I 
>> came upon references within Traveller material to paper money.  It seemed 
>> so anacronistic to me.  But, perhaps there was a good reason behind it.  
>> Anyone have any ideas?
>
> I thought I read somewhere that Traveller used "hard currency" designed
> around the old Play-Doh press you used to see on TV.  The theory was that
> you take a number of different coloured polymer fibres (about 0.5mm in
> diameter) and form them into a block (maybe 2" by 5"), whose overall length
> is dictated by the length of the individual fibres (maybe twenty feet or
> so).  Bond the fibres together using heat and shove the whole mess into a
> baloney slicer that turns the block into a bunch of thin sheets.  The
> pattern of the fibres would be identical from sheet to sheet and the
> different colours of the fibres would form the pattern on the sheet.

Tghe fibres would have to be a *lot* smaller than .5 mm. That's
equivalent to 50 dpi. And 50 dpi printing is pretty damned ugly.
Heck, my old RX-80 does .3 mm dots!

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 21:57:35 PST
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #190

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> Leonard Erickson wrote:
>
>>>The SKS???  I think you mean the PTRS.  The SKS is "Samozaryadni i
>>>Karabin Simonova"  Loosely translated "Simonov's Carbine."  The PTRS is 
>>>a 14.5mm WWII vintage anti-tank rifle.  The PTRS is the predicessor of 
>>>the KPV.
>> 
>> The SKS action is scaled down from a WWII era anti-tank rifle, and I
>> could have sworn it was a 17mm job.
>
> We must be talking about two different SKS's then the one I'm refering to 
> is a first generation automatic rifle, 10 round magazine, integral 
> bayonet designed in the late 40's early 50's.  Sold very heavilly to 3rd 
> world countries in the 50's.  Fires 7.62 short, and was the predicessor 
> to the AKM.

That's the rifle. I used to own one, but had to sell it. You forgot to
mention the stripper clips you use to load it. I know I'm right about
the action originally being developed for an anti-tank rifle. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: Liam_McCauley@qsp.co.uk (Liam McCauley)
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 13:48:25 +0200
Subject: Corn Dogs?

     Er, sorry for being so thick, but what's a corn dog?  And why are 
     references to it so hilarious (or not) in Aliens of the Rim?
     
     Cheers,
     Liam
     
     Liam_McCauley@QSP.co.uk

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #227
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