Me, then Mistral:
What do people think the computers of the future will really be like? Do people agree that the Federation computer technology we see on screen is just a smokescreen concealing the Real Thing? How does one go about programming them? -- I've never believed the prodding-with-fancy-screwdrivers line.
Well, this is just a thought, but ... one of the early super-computers (Cray II, perhaps?) was built in a circle, because the limiting speed was how fast electricity could travel along its wires, and the circle allowed the wires to be shorter. Suppose that Federation computers have a similar problem of limiting speed that can be overcome to a certain extent by building specialized modular circuits - maybe tiny atomic-level computers in themselves - for different types of processing. The bit with the fancy screwdrivers then becomes reconfiguring the manner in which the modules interconnect.
[Not playing the game, but... ] I'd always seen the fancy screwdrivers bit as evidence that the scriptwriters &c hadn't a clue how one might interact with the computers of the future.
Surely with the system you describe, which pretty much exists at present methinks, one could have some form of control at a level we'd recognise as software? (Rather than screwdrivers?)
I'm totally stuck with something I'm writing because, being totally computer illiterate myself, I simply can't envisage how someone who's presumably quite good with the things, such as Avon, might think about what we'd call programming. So, any further thoughts very welcome...
Tavia