Computers
Over centuries of development, computer technology has continued to grow and evolve. After the industry maxed out the capabilities of standard semi-conductor chips they moved on to super-conducting materials and then to the inevitable optical systems, allowing computers to operate at relativistic speeds. Today’s computers are all optical processing units that operate on a hexadecimal base programming system. Moving away from a binary base language allows developers to represent significantly more complicated concepts and data with much smaller amounts of information. This combined with relativistic processing speeds insures that, in most cases, there is little chance of a computer not having enough processing muscle to support even the most complicated tasks/software with ease.
Memory systems are all optical as well, using three-dimensional, holographic storage mediums for near instant access to massive amounts of information. At last the computer’s memory and storage devices are integrated into one single space and technology which allows for instant on systems and complete resistance to power loss and most catastrophic data loss scenarios.
The main boards and other peripherals have been replaced with an ODN or Optical Data Network backbone architecture that allows, again, for relativistic throughput of information from the CPU to anywhere else attached to the computer.
Actual CPU processing speeds are measured in PetaFlops for most normal consumer computers and there is no significant difference between the wrist mounted mobile computers and the most powerful of fixed, home systems.
Computer display technology has evolved to the point at which there is no actual fixed display, rather, there is a holographic display that floats somewhere near the interface point, which can be either fixed or also holographic in nature depending on the situation and the user’s needs/desires.
Most modern computers can output to an infinite number of holographic displays simultaneously, however most normal users limit themselves to between one and four ‘displays’ in order to keep themselves productive. The ‘display’ can be nearly any size, even on a small wrist type computer, although power consumption increases substantially once the display increases beyond about 10 cubic feet.
Interface technology as also advanced significantly, now falling into one of two common forms. Hard interfaces are touch sensitive, user configurable surfaces that can change and be changed per application or per user on that particular terminal.
Soft interfaces are three dimensional projections that track the movements of the user within their area and interpret that movement as input. This can as simple as a virtual keyboard or as complex as allowing the user to reach into the display area, ‘grab’ a portion or element of the display and then move it elsewhere. These displays are by far the most common on most mobile computers as they allow said devices to be considerably smaller in size.
Storage technology has become extravagantly large over the years, with an average size data wafer or crystal able to contain PetaBytes of information in even their smallest sizes.