So, as we all know, Data's storage capacity is 800 quadrillion bits, or ~88 pebibytes. I'm curious how much space the OS for Data uses. Is there anything anywhere that states this?
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25I think we can assume that he runs on Android... Ba dum tish. – Valorum Jun 23 '14 at 17:02
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2Can you give any references for this repeated assertion? It doesn't make much sense, given that we repeatedly see human-level artificial intelligence stored in the ship's computer: Moriarty in TNG and the Doctor from Voyager are two examples. – Daniel Roseman Jun 23 '14 at 17:31
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@DanielRoseman The actual size is up for discussion, but it was discussed here. – phantom42 Jun 23 '14 at 17:38
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Why the downvote? At worst, there's an unattributed factoid. There's bound to be something in some piece of EU material. – Chris B. Behrens Jun 23 '14 at 17:42
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2Just a speculation, but afaik Data never had a problem with storage space as opposed to the Doctor from Voyager. Perhaps inner workings of positronic brain are completely different to those of standard computers Starfleet use, and therefor stated capacity is hardly comparable. Positronic brain might have ability to infinitely compress data or something close to it. – Zeela Jun 23 '14 at 17:59
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With that advanced technology it's maybe more a question if there is any operating system involved. As he has AI, maybe all of it's components run on themselves, communicating with each other. In addition to that: Bits and bytes may not be limited to the capacities we know. As CPU speed enhances and as they're more aware of environmental problems, 1 TB of "Star Trek space" may be this pre-compressed that we can't calculate with 1 TB of nowadays in particular. – Trollwut Jun 23 '14 at 18:14
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@DanielRoseman: There's an episode of Voyager("Lifesigns", S2E19) where the Doctor transfers the brain pattern of a Vidian to the computer, and Kes asks if there's enough space. There's also episodes of DS9 where some of the crew are stored in a hologram, and there are repeated mentions of how much space this is taking up. – PiousVenom Jun 23 '14 at 18:23
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2I don't get the contradiction: It is entirely possible, that Datas storage-capacity is not sufficient to hold a human consciousness. But a human consciousness is unbelievable cluttered and surly Data has not much use of suppressed memories, sub-conscious desires towards his mother and stuff. His storage needs only to be as big as an android consciousness needs it. That might be way smaller! – Einer Jun 23 '14 at 18:27
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@MyCodeSucks In the DS9 episode, only their physical shapes were stored in the holosuite - their minds were stored in the rest of the station. So there's definitely the space. Where did you hear that assertion that's in the question? – Izkata Jun 23 '14 at 22:57
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1@Richard: Hey! The original title for http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/36438/is-there-software-in-star-trek-with-a-brand-name was "Does Data run Android OS?" Alas, no one thought it was funny then :( – ThePopMachine Jun 24 '14 at 00:55
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1@Chris B. Behrens -- the problem is that the whole question seems to hinge on the idea that there's a contradiction between the events of various episodes and the claim that storing a human consciousness would take "much more room than the ships computer has", but the question doesn't give any evidence that this claim was ever made by anyone in the Star Trek universe. If no one ever actually said that, then what is there left to answer here? – Hypnosifl Jun 24 '14 at 02:01
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@Izkata: They were stored only AFTER wiping almost all other data in the system – PiousVenom Jun 24 '14 at 14:47
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2@Hypnosifl: I've posted part of the script of a DS9 episode where it is stated that it takes quite a lot of space to hold one person in the ship's computer memory. This is not a faulty assumption. – PiousVenom Jun 24 '14 at 14:49
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@MyCodeSucks - that's helpful, but it's still not ideal since in that ep they were trying to store enough data so they could reconstruct the people physically in the transporter, which would presumably include every molecule of their brain and body. If you just wanted to run a simulation of a human brain on a computer, a lot less data might be needed, you'd probably need the details of how all the neurons were connected at the synapses but the actual simulated neurons might be simplified models, so you might need vastly less data than you would if you wanted to keep track of every molecule. – Hypnosifl Jun 24 '14 at 15:39
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@Hypnosifl: As was already stated, the physical looks were already stored in the holodeck. Odo and Eddington are trying to save the neural data of the person. – PiousVenom Jun 24 '14 at 15:40
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@MyCodeSucks - Not sure what you mean by "physical looks", but "neural data" in this case would presumably mean "enough data to reconstruct the brain completely down to the last molecule", not "enough data to run a simulation of the brain on a computer that would behave like the original person". My point is that the latter could include simplified models of neurons, the former couldn't. – Hypnosifl Jun 24 '14 at 15:45
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Just looked at the transcript at http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/482.htm -- the dialogue distinguishes between storing their "physical patterns" and their "neural energy", the latter taking up more space because it "has to be stored at the quantum level". But it's not clear if this is a generic requirement for any intelligence (maybe all intelligence in the Star Trek universe relies on quantum computation, for instance) or if it's just a requirement in order for the transporter to be able to reboot their physical brains. – Hypnosifl Jun 24 '14 at 15:53
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@Hypnosifl: I've simplified my question. – PiousVenom Jun 24 '14 at 16:02
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@MyCodeSucks -- OK, can you clarify what you mean by "OS" here? Do you mean his entire program, or do you mean some kind of specific top-level program that allocates computing resources between other programs running in his brain? (that's basically what a modern day 'operating system' is, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system ) – Hypnosifl Jun 24 '14 at 16:49
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@Hypnosifl: The top level program. Whatever it is that allows his subroutines to run and fire correctly. – PiousVenom Jun 24 '14 at 16:51
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@MyCodeSucks - I don't think we know for sure his program works that way, as noted in the question at http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/56087/is-datas-brain-more-akin-to-organic-neural-networks-or-software-running-on-har some of the dialogue talks about his "subroutines" which might suggest this kind of traditional hierarchical structure, but some lines in "Evolution" and "A Fistful of Datas" refer to his "neural network" (see http://www.google.com/#q=site:www.chakoteya.net+%22neural+network%22+data ), and real-world neural nets aren't structured that way. – Hypnosifl Jun 24 '14 at 16:59
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800 quadrillion bits = 100 000 000 gigabytes. Data has a basic core Operating System but its more complicated than any of today's OS. I say, its about 1 meg compressed. Now the real question is does he get any security updates and patches. – Tasos Jul 21 '14 at 13:09
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Star Trek writers are not, by and large, computer scientists or software engineers, and neither, they know, are all of their audience. As such, details such as operating systems, or indeed even basic operating principles, are rarely described in any detail. We're told, for example, that Data has a "positronic matrix", but we're never really told what this means, any more than Asimov, who first used the concept of positronic brains in his robot novels, ever really told us what it means.
Other similar buzzwords have been bandied about to describe Starfleet's futuristic equivalent of our real-world electronic systems -- duotronic, isolinear, etc. The principles behind them have never really been discussed, with the sole exception, perhaps, of "The Ultimate Computer", where we learn that part of what makes M5 special is that its personality (to the degree it has one) is derived from the memory engrams of its creator, Dr. Richard Daystrom.
(The engram, by the way, is not something Star Trek made up, although it is so far only hypothetical as a unit or location of memory storage in a human brain).
Generally, such buzzwords and explanations come to pass because they're important to a story -- either directly to a plot, or to something about the ambiance or world-building of a plot. "Duotronic" for example showed up for the first time in "The Ultimate Computer". The question of how much space The Doctor's program and memories consumed became integral to the plot of a Voyager episode, in part because some writer actually thought through the implications of an ostensibly emergency-only AI running continually for years without reset.
But they never did a story in which Data was in similar danger of running out of memory, and so the question of how much of that memory is consumed by his basic operating software has never been canonically answered.
Michael Scott Shappe
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