Tricorder

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Tricorders (TNG era)

In the (fictional) Star Trek universe, the tricorder is a handheld device used for scanning an area, interpreting and displaying data from scans to the user, and recording information to isolinear chips.

Three primary variants of the tricorder are issued by Starfleet: the standard tricorder is a general use device used primarily to scout unfamiliar areas. The medical tricorder is used specifically by doctors to help diagnose diseases and collect bodily information about a patient; the key difference between this and a standard tricorder is a detachable hand-held high-resolution sensor array. The engineering tricorder is a variation on the device fine-tuned for starship engineering purposes. There are also many other lesser-used varieties of special use tricorders.

According to Dr. Julian Bashir, while medical tricorders are very good at scanning living people, they are not very good at scanning dead ones. Evidently this is the first lesson taught at Starfleet medical.

The tricorder of the 23rd century was a heavy, black, rectangular device with a small screen and a shoulder strap. The 24th century update on the unit is a small, gray, square model with a flip-out panel to allow for a larger screen.

The tricorder prop for the original Star Trek series was designed and built by Wah Ming Chang, one of several futuristic props he created under contract. Some of his designs are considered influences on later, real-world consumer electronics devices. (See also: Martin Cooper and the Star Trek communicator.)

[edit] 'Real' tricorders

A real-world device comparable to the tricorder was developed by a Canadian company called the Vital Technologies Corporation in 1996. The scanner was called the TR-107 Mark 1; Vital Tech. sold 10,000 of them before going out of business. The TR-107 could scan EM radiation, temperature, and barometric pressure. The company could call this device a tricorder because Gene Roddenberry had a specific clause in his contract that allowed any company who could get the technology to work to use the name.

Interestingly, the real tricorders were considered by most fans to be too 'difficult' and intimidating, as they were fully functional scientific instruments.

Software exists to make hand-held devices simulate a tricorder. Examples include Jeff Jetton's Tricorder - 2.0 for the PalmPilot and the "genuine Tricorder from Elegant Solutions" for the Pocket PC.

In February, 2007, researchers from Purdue University announced the creation of a handheld device that features a miniaturized mass spectrometer that can be used for the analysis of chemical substances without preparing and placing samples in a vacuum chamber.[1]