mae@aplvax.UUCP (Mary Anne Espenshade) (01/14/85)
While reading the novelization of Frontios over lunch today I came across the following in chapter 3: An officer is posting guards to catch Tegan and Turlough and says - 'Kernighan . . . Ritchie . . . See nobody passes through here,' I've only seen parts 3 and 4 of Frontios so I don't know if this comes directly from the episode or was added for the novel, but the script's author also wrote the novelization. So, does anyone know if Christopher Bidmead is a C programmer? Perhaps the TARDIS computer runs UNIX. Mary Anne Espenshade ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!mae
jdb@mordor.UUCP (John Bruner) (01/15/85)
Hmm. This suggests that the Doctor's TARDIS is an old "Type 11/40", except that we all know that it is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside (virtual memory). Perhaps Rassilon and Omega are really computer geniuses who figured out how to run large address spaces on PDP-11's. On another note: a while back the announcement was made that JNT wanted to scrap the police-box appearance of the TARDIS for something more contemporary (because young viewers in Britain had never seen a real police call box). At a Doctor Who convention last year I heard JNT say that, due to overwhelming popular support, the current TARDIS appearance is "safe". After seeing *Frontios* I wondered if perhaps this was the episode in which the shape change was to have occurred. Does anyone know for sure? -- John Bruner (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) MILNET: jdb@mordor.ARPA [jdb@s1-c] (415) 422-0758 UUCP: ...!ucbvax!dual!mordor!jdb ...!decvax!decwrl!mordor!jdb