The Continuity Guide
Technical Facilities
by Martin Willey

Standard screens, including the Big Screen in Main Mission, are video screens but for computer output they runs in terminal emulation. The terminal screen has similar characteristics to standard terminals from the 1970s to the 1980s such as the 1975 DEC VT52 (and still used in the DOS and Unix command shells as well as the Microsoft Windows HyperTerminal). It has a limited character set (ASCII with no graphics), slow typing (1970s terminals used 56k serial lines), and in Breakaway the Big Screen display text is clearly green screen (the standard phosphor colour for early terminals, and still synonymous with computing in films like The Matrix (1999)). From the mid 1980s white on black screens became available, which is usually seen in Moonbase Alpha. The screen is somewhat less than the standard 24 row by 80 column, but from the DEC VT100 onwards there were ANSI escape sequences for double height letters which is a near approximation.

The most common computer monitor panel has one large and two small displays. The smaller monitors have three input ports for receiving data from e.g. medical sensors. The large screen is sometimes used as a videophone. There are 11 function keys in all (here labelled S,F,T,V,A,P,H,O,G,U,N) ; they are used for e.g. ending a video call or turning off monitors

Main Mission uses a slightly different configuration, with two large and two small screens and only one loudspeaker grill. Here, we see Dr.Russell trying to restore the broken telemetry link to Parks' and Bannion's Eagle in Matter Of Life And Death. Although basic functions (power on/off, reset, answer/end video call) can be performed by pushing the square buttons below the monitors, it seems the computer displays are largely controlled from the adjacent panels.

A third computer monitor configuration is used in the Year 2 Weapons Section and Voyager, Ultra probe cockpit sets. It consists of one large plus three small CRT monitors.

Alpha Computer users can display text and graphics on a wide range of CRT screens -- commlocks, communications posts, wall/desk-mounted screens or portable "relay" monitors such as the one pictured here.

Some episodes feature a smaller version of the wall-mounted Main Mission/Command Centre "main screen". The flatscreen control panel differs from episode to episode. Shown here is the unusual Breakaway Reconnaisance Section configuration. Koenig pushes the leftmost button to turn off the screen (the only time when we see this control panel being used for anything). The graphs on the small twin screen resemble modern operating system (e.g. Windows, Linux) CPU or computer memory usage displays.

Here, Koenig and Bergman are examining a computer generated "radio map" of the Earth's surface in Another Time Another Place.

Although the standard Year 1 printer panel has four paper slots, only the one at lower left is used. The user pushes the red and white buttons to obtain a paper copy. The coloured lights at right possibly indicate computer network communications activity while the six vertical slots look like disk or memory card drives

This version of the Year 1 printer panel also has a Metamec clock. In Black Sun, Koenig pushes the red and green buttons to turn of the Alpha navigation signal radio transmitter

Hardcopy printouts can also be obtained from Kano's desk

In Year 2, the checkout receipts were replaced with printout cards. The printer panel is only seen in the Command Centre.

The Year 2 printout card initially appeared in Into Infinity -- it's actually an early 1970s punch card which already had become obsolete by the time Space:1999 ended in 1976!