LT commander Data specs
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posted on January 3rd, 2012, 2:47 am
Tyler wrote:Data with a Bioneural brain would be funny, an Android vulnerable to the common Cold and Neelix's "cooking".
And cheese.
posted on January 3rd, 2012, 11:48 am
Terra_Inc wrote:I've never heard anyone use quad as a real unit. Are you sure? The name Quadbit would indicate a half-byte, which doesn't have much use besides corresponding to a single hex value.
Technically, the use of positron circuitry doesn't make any sense, Asimov just picked it because it sounded awesome (and it's an antiparticle, anything with anti in it makes scifi writers go nuts). Today it's more likely that Soong would have used a quantum computer or early bioneural circuitry.
Ok you sparked my interest so I went to check it out, here is a copy-paste-google-translate of what exactly a "quad" is from my digitalized school textbook:
On a 16 bit i80386 machine a nibble represents 4 bits or half of a byte.
A byte represents 8 bits.
A word represents 16 bits or 2 bytes.
On 32 bit machines the DWORD(double word) is available and represents 32 bits or 4 bytes.
On the newer 64 bit machines a QWORD represents 64 bits or 8 bytes of data. QWORD stands for QuadWord or Quadruple Word, also known as QUAD.
On modern computers, a single character consumes 2 bytes of data in memory. So the word cat would consume 6 bytes. These are known as DBCS or double-byte character sets.
So basically 1 TerraQuad equals 8 Terrabytes. Why is terraquad better than terrabyte? Like i said, because of the bandwidth. 1 TerraQuad is 8 times bigger but it also transfers as information 8 times faster than terrabyte, which is the main reason hard drives have become faster over the years. Its like comparing a one-lane highway with a 8-lane highway. Both have the same speed limits but the big one can move 8-times more traffic. CAPICHE?
Basically data has 64-bit processors running on positrons in his head... I wonder if Soong made a deal with AMD?
posted on January 3rd, 2012, 1:04 pm
posted on January 3rd, 2012, 4:01 pm
Beef wrote:Ok you sparked my interest so I went to check it out, here is a copy-paste-google-translate of what exactly a "quad" is from my digitalized school textbook:
On a 16 bit i80386 machine a nibble represents 4 bits or half of a byte.
A byte represents 8 bits.
A word represents 16 bits or 2 bytes.
On 32 bit machines the DWORD(double word) is available and represents 32 bits or 4 bytes.
On the newer 64 bit machines a QWORD represents 64 bits or 8 bytes of data. QWORD stands for QuadWord or Quadruple Word, also known as QUAD.
On modern computers, a single character consumes 2 bytes of data in memory. So the word cat would consume 6 bytes. These are known as DBCS or double-byte character sets.
So basically 1 TerraQuad equals 8 Terrabytes. Why is terraquad better than terrabyte? Like i said, because of the bandwidth. 1 TerraQuad is 8 times bigger but it also transfers as information 8 times faster than terrabyte, which is the main reason hard drives have become faster over the years. Its like comparing a one-lane highway with a 8-lane highway. Both have the same speed limits but the big one can move 8-times more traffic. CAPICHE?
Basically data has 64-bit processors running on positrons in his head... I wonder if Soong made a deal with AMD?
Ah, so it's a x86 qword. Yeah. Though I'm not sure that the person who introduced it into Trek actually knew that much about processor architecture.
Words and their derivatives aren't commonly used as unit (at least not professionally), because word lengths are different depending on architecture. Your description is only valid for x86 architecture. For example, the 64bit MIPS (used in many consoles such as the N64 and PS2) had a word length of 64, the 32bit MIPS (older) had a word length of 32. x86 is weird because it's technically 16bit, but also 32bit and 64bit, because Intel didn't want to break compatibility with older software. This is also the reason why x86 Assembly hurts my eyes.
posted on January 3rd, 2012, 4:23 pm
posted on January 3rd, 2012, 4:52 pm
Last edited by Terra_Inc on January 3rd, 2012, 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Beef wrote:No, x86 architecture does not represent 64-bit processors.
Some of them do. x64 (and partially the older Itanium) are technically still x86 architectures.
Quoth Wikipedia: "Although most x86 processors used in new personal computers and servers have 64-bit capabilities, to avoid compatibility problems with older computers or systems, the term x86-64 (or x64) is often used to denote 64-bit software, with the term x86 implying only 32-bit."
But yes, most of the older x86 do not support 64-bit instruction sets.
posted on January 3rd, 2012, 7:08 pm
Lets just drop the matter its off topic, what matters is what's hiding inside data's skull. If its really that urgent to debate computing then start a new topic and send me a personal message with a link included and i'll anwer all your questions! 
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