1978 Article: The Technology Of Trek

This time, I'm bringing you more material from Issue #3 of the awesome Science Fantasy Film Classics magazine, published July 1978. You can view the cover here, and earlier content I've posted from this issue here, as well as here. And there will be more to come in future posts, you can be sure. This time the article focuses on the wonderfully thought-out technology that set the show apart from all other TV sci-fi, and was years ahead of its time. It was the technological trappings that made the setting so believable. The article looks at the technology on the show and where things were at the time, and postulates which items could be created and how long in the future it might be. With the exception of the transporter, which was more of a time-and-budget-saving device than a real possibility, many of the ideas are much closer to reality now, and some have been realized. The furthest away from being possible any time soon is warp drive, being only a theory.
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Bonus: a full-page photo of Bill Shatner from one of the TV-movie magazine articles published in September of 1967, during the show's original run.

1978 Article on Trek's Computers

The short-lived but awesome magazine Science Fantasy Film Classics met an undeserved and early end, but the several issues I have are some of my most treasured mags from the time. I've posted material from issue #3 before, but it's so jam-packed with different Trek articles that it's time to feature it again. Reading this 1978 indepth look at (and practically a dissertation on) the technology behind the computers seen on Star Trek, is interesting from today's perspective and in light of computing advances. The article is actually a reprint of a 1977 article from the computer magazine Byte, so it's written with a little more authority than one might expect from a SF/fantasy mag.

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Bonus: below, from the same issue, a nice painting of the Enterprise defending K-7 from attack by the Romulans and Klingons.

1967 Popular Science article

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Originally published in the December 1967 issue of Popular Science.

Star Trek's technology, grounded as it was in scientific theory and mixed with imaginative and logical design, ignited a burning interest in the viewers to know more. Unusual for a show of the time period and even long after; how many articles did you see on the science of "Lost In Space"? I was captivated by the ships and gadgets also; the first picture I ever drew of the show was the Enterprise, and I continued to do so for years as I became more familiar with it. It really was one of the stars of the show as far as I was concerned.

I loved that kind of thing so much, that one day in 1974 I wore my newly-acquired AMT Star Trek Exploration Set to school... the phaser and communicator on my belt (attached with velcro, just like the show) and a hand-made insignia pinned to my shirt. Yes, I was a geek before people knew what to call them, but it did attract the interest of a couple of like-minded students who became my Trekker pals. (Nowadays, it would result in being suspended for bringing a "weapon" to school and possibly triggering an evacuation and SWAT Team incident). But, to a small group of other teens I was cool since I was always bringing fun mags like Famous Monsters and The Monster Times to school with me, which they all gathered around and read in study hall. My drawings were always passed around with exclamations of their coolness.

Bonus: Below, a painting of our lovely lady by Andy Probert, from the set that you could buy in the early 70's from Lincoln Enterprises. You can see some others as they are in frames on my wall, in the picture here. Andy, of course, went on to design the movie version of the ship based on drawings by Matt Jefferies, the ships' original creator.

And below, from a far less accomplished artist (namely, me), a drawing of the ship from memory, made one day in 1974 (when I was 15) as I sat in the library at school during lunch break. The Klingon ship I did have a reference for, as I looked at the illustration in "The Making of Star Trek" a day or two later, adding it to the drawing.

I was a relative late-comer to the show, but like many people, came to know and love it during the re-run popularity it began to have in the early 70's. One early exposure was the Gold Key comic book, and the first issue I ever bought, #20... the cover of which I scanned in for you below. It further whetted my appetite for the real thing, as did the James Blish books, causing me to start sneaking in any episodes I could catch on TV when I could, and saving any magazine or newspaper articles I found... which is what this blog is all about sharing now.

Man, this takes me back... to when I bought it in September of 1973, to be exact. Nothing quite as exciting as a zero-G fight using vacuum cleaners!

The crew reacts as the young Kirk gets the snot beat
out of him again in the new movie about their exploits.