» Wed Dec 07, 2011 8:19 am download at bottom of post
Ever wondered why terminals and computers are for the most part only made by one manufacturer? Ever [not] been so bored of the fact that every terminal hacking session is exactly identical that you spend the whole time repeatedly mashing your mouse buttons to skip it? Ever wanted to fix this? Well, don't, that's my job.
Terminals are pretty pointless to me for the most part. They're just special menus, and don't really act like terminals should. You rarely have to fix them, and usually you can't do much with them after you've extracted whatever quest-related information you can get out of them. It's time to put an end to this, with a yet unnamed mod. What does it do? It adds some things, and in the future it will change some things. It adds a few new OS platforms and some new hacking session text to select systems using the pure funk-ium magic that is NVSE. It also attempts to make terminals more entertaining and useful.
I always found it odd that there was only one real manufacturer of computer products (RobCo), when given the state of computers in the Fallout universe, this would not be the case. Computers, being as primitive as they are, would be produced by a variety of different manufacturers (some seemingly unrelated to electronics in general) and run on a variety of different platforms depending on the job. (A little more detail on the platforms later)
Let's cut to the chase, you want screenshots, and Wikipedia-style bulleted information that gives you the everything. I'll try to stay lore friendly.
The Screenshots may or may not be related to the subject of discussion now with superb low-quality due to steam is bad at it
Spoiler
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00001.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00007.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00008.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00006.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00005.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00009.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00003.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-22_00001.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00007.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00008.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00006.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00005.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00009.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-25_00003.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/2011-11-22_00001.jpg
The Big Four (Manufacturers) and maybe some others when I feel like adding more
Spoiler
RobCo
It's the de facto standard of computing in the Fallout Universe. The Unified Operating System is the result of careful observations of the flaws and tactics of the "big three" that dominated the industry from the 1990s to the 2050s, and the careful study proved fruitful. UOS dominates most of the commercial/industrial and all of the consumer sectors due to its reliable all-purpose design. RobCo currently produces the Think Machine and Cyberbrain series of computers.
IBM
One of the first commercial computer manufacturers, IBM has been producing computers since before the Fallout Universe diverged from our own, and the quality shows. IBM once claimed practical ownership over the general use sector before it lost its title to RobCo, and its System/80 series of supercomputers were so reliably built that most of them survive intact in the Fallout era. IBM produces numerous systems for various niches, the most common being the System/8, the System/80's diminutive and cheaper brother. Because of the IBM's former dominance, offices will commonly utilize IBM's OS/80 and OS/P alongside their default RobCo UOS systems.
Soren Equipment Corporation (SEC)
SEC is a multi-national conglomerate born from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation in the 1990s, the result of DEC's acquisition of numerous defunct companies during the great crash of 1997. SEC platforms are usually exclusively employed in scientific and public environments, where their high security and ridiculously fast integer/decimal number calculation performance makes them ideal. Their XDP line of computers is the preferred weapon of scientists, government officials and mathletes who need a simple, streamlined architecture that can calculate big, complex numbers as fast as possible. SEC's wildly successful SENIX operating system is the cornerstone of scientific progress, and has been licensed and ported to numerous other machine architectures aside from SEC's own systems.
SEC is one of the only pre-war companies that still exists in the Fallout era, as the SEC factory and archive in Los Angeles was renovated and subsidized by the NCR government in an effort to re-ignite technological advancement.
General Electric
GE's presence in the computer industry is mostly silent and unnoticed, as the systems it builds are not designed to be used in the office, the home, or the laboratory. GE systems instead are commonly employed as machine controllers or automators, and are some of the most common machines in the factory environment. GE systems are of a rugged, modular design, rather than the sleek appearance of SEC, RobCo and IBM products, and are highly regarded for embedded applications and "mix-n-match" computer assembly. GE's current EMS-X line of computer systems is second only to RobCo in the field of industrial control, and is still chosen over the attractively designed RobCo systems for applications that require the most precise possible timing or greatest signal quality. All GE systems run the Mainframe-Automated Control System (M.A.C.S.) OS, which is praised for its simplicity (The M.A.C.S. menu-mode interface is now the standard terminal interface) and excellent software base. The precise nature of GE systems also makes them a common sight in recording studios and radio broadcast stations.
It's the de facto standard of computing in the Fallout Universe. The Unified Operating System is the result of careful observations of the flaws and tactics of the "big three" that dominated the industry from the 1990s to the 2050s, and the careful study proved fruitful. UOS dominates most of the commercial/industrial and all of the consumer sectors due to its reliable all-purpose design. RobCo currently produces the Think Machine and Cyberbrain series of computers.
IBM
One of the first commercial computer manufacturers, IBM has been producing computers since before the Fallout Universe diverged from our own, and the quality shows. IBM once claimed practical ownership over the general use sector before it lost its title to RobCo, and its System/80 series of supercomputers were so reliably built that most of them survive intact in the Fallout era. IBM produces numerous systems for various niches, the most common being the System/8, the System/80's diminutive and cheaper brother. Because of the IBM's former dominance, offices will commonly utilize IBM's OS/80 and OS/P alongside their default RobCo UOS systems.
Soren Equipment Corporation (SEC)
SEC is a multi-national conglomerate born from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation in the 1990s, the result of DEC's acquisition of numerous defunct companies during the great crash of 1997. SEC platforms are usually exclusively employed in scientific and public environments, where their high security and ridiculously fast integer/decimal number calculation performance makes them ideal. Their XDP line of computers is the preferred weapon of scientists, government officials and mathletes who need a simple, streamlined architecture that can calculate big, complex numbers as fast as possible. SEC's wildly successful SENIX operating system is the cornerstone of scientific progress, and has been licensed and ported to numerous other machine architectures aside from SEC's own systems.
SEC is one of the only pre-war companies that still exists in the Fallout era, as the SEC factory and archive in Los Angeles was renovated and subsidized by the NCR government in an effort to re-ignite technological advancement.
General Electric
GE's presence in the computer industry is mostly silent and unnoticed, as the systems it builds are not designed to be used in the office, the home, or the laboratory. GE systems instead are commonly employed as machine controllers or automators, and are some of the most common machines in the factory environment. GE systems are of a rugged, modular design, rather than the sleek appearance of SEC, RobCo and IBM products, and are highly regarded for embedded applications and "mix-n-match" computer assembly. GE's current EMS-X line of computer systems is second only to RobCo in the field of industrial control, and is still chosen over the attractively designed RobCo systems for applications that require the most precise possible timing or greatest signal quality. All GE systems run the Mainframe-Automated Control System (M.A.C.S.) OS, which is praised for its simplicity (The M.A.C.S. menu-mode interface is now the standard terminal interface) and excellent software base. The precise nature of GE systems also makes them a common sight in recording studios and radio broadcast stations.
The Additions now with sub-spoilers that may actually be spoilers
Spoiler
Aerotech Office Park
Black Mountain
Fortification Hill Weather Station
Camp McCarran
Vault 11
Aerotech Office Park
Spoiler
Repair a pre-war SEC super mainframe and restore the local office of a government-subsidized free public computer access project to (semi)-working order
Black Mountain
Spoiler
Hack into a GE mainframe and take down Tabitha's broadcast remotely by disabling the transmitter array
Fortification Hill Weather Station
Spoiler
What was the weather like on judgement day?
Camp McCarran
Spoiler
(incomplete) Fix the network issues with the lab's mainframe and uncover a wealth of scientific data, that you collected for them in the first place
Vault 11
Spoiler
Terminals are rusted now. Some new additions coming soon.
The Plans there's no point in software that you can't look forward to the next version of
Spoiler
- Add some more content to the Aerotech Office "puzzle"
- Finish Camp McCarran mainframe system
- Find some sort of use for the weather station at Fortification hill
- Make Vault 11 svck less
- Quests, restoration projects, etc
- Re-texture, and maybe even re-model some systems so everything doesn't look exactly the same.
- Add more things
- And some more things after that
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8789425/UVFolder/UVBeta_0-0-0.zip suggestions, improvement and bug reports always welcome, just don't copy my work or distribute it without my permission
