Been thinking through what an average Traveller watch should be like in the 50-something century.
Of course like we have now, personal comm devices tied to atomic clock-driven networked systems and ubiquitous clocks stuck on every device for pennies would seem to make them obsolete.
But our intrepid explorers/military/freebooters aren't going to be on TL8+ safe zones most of the time- at least if they are doing travelling properly.
So what should our not-safe hightech watches have?
I would start with an integral atomic clock on the wrist, based on the advances from this company's chipset atomic clock or CSAC tech-
https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/embedded-clocks-frequency-references/5207-space-csac
Absolute accuracy is required for navigation, possibly manual burns, and scientific instrumentation.
Right now it's too bulky for practical wrist use, although one $6000 each set of 10 have been made. But of course the march of technology can likely be counted to miniaturize CSAC, that is what I am assuming.
I would then pair it with an RTG battery, probably stick with Pu-238 pacemaker 'battery' tech. Solar could be a cheap alternative.
What else?
Modern watches often have integrated altimeter/barometer/temperature sensors. Of course they would have to be calibrated to conditions on whatever planet for the atmospherics.
Specialized watches for diving probably reading out pressure set to that planet's oceans as part of the dive computer component.
Which gets us into the 'local time' issue- the watch is going to have a smart computer wrapped around the CSAC core, so setting the watch to planet/system time would be done as part of normal travel.
Every polity would have an atomic clock-like satellite broadcasting the local atomic clock time at most systems, probably in a standardized format for trade friendly ones. For planetary surveys in the wild, setting up a time system would be probably done by the third orbit according to Scout Standards.
Something like GPS/maps, comms, health monitoring and other such features could be done by spacesuits, clothing or other carried devices so may not be an important thing to have other then a backup, and a good deal of that will depend on interstellar standards.
Emergency beacon/call/locator set to the adventuring party's known frequencies/ciphers would be handy.
I'm thinking though that a big one would be inertial tracker, recording all movement so there is a record and a trail back, and measurement of G accels particularly for pilots and drivers.
Anything I missed?
Of course like we have now, personal comm devices tied to atomic clock-driven networked systems and ubiquitous clocks stuck on every device for pennies would seem to make them obsolete.
But our intrepid explorers/military/freebooters aren't going to be on TL8+ safe zones most of the time- at least if they are doing travelling properly.
So what should our not-safe hightech watches have?
I would start with an integral atomic clock on the wrist, based on the advances from this company's chipset atomic clock or CSAC tech-
https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/embedded-clocks-frequency-references/5207-space-csac
Absolute accuracy is required for navigation, possibly manual burns, and scientific instrumentation.
Right now it's too bulky for practical wrist use, although one $6000 each set of 10 have been made. But of course the march of technology can likely be counted to miniaturize CSAC, that is what I am assuming.
I would then pair it with an RTG battery, probably stick with Pu-238 pacemaker 'battery' tech. Solar could be a cheap alternative.
What else?
Modern watches often have integrated altimeter/barometer/temperature sensors. Of course they would have to be calibrated to conditions on whatever planet for the atmospherics.
Specialized watches for diving probably reading out pressure set to that planet's oceans as part of the dive computer component.
Which gets us into the 'local time' issue- the watch is going to have a smart computer wrapped around the CSAC core, so setting the watch to planet/system time would be done as part of normal travel.
Every polity would have an atomic clock-like satellite broadcasting the local atomic clock time at most systems, probably in a standardized format for trade friendly ones. For planetary surveys in the wild, setting up a time system would be probably done by the third orbit according to Scout Standards.
Something like GPS/maps, comms, health monitoring and other such features could be done by spacesuits, clothing or other carried devices so may not be an important thing to have other then a backup, and a good deal of that will depend on interstellar standards.
Emergency beacon/call/locator set to the adventuring party's known frequencies/ciphers would be handy.
I'm thinking though that a big one would be inertial tracker, recording all movement so there is a record and a trail back, and measurement of G accels particularly for pilots and drivers.
Anything I missed?