Tricorder

The Starfleet tricorder is a multi-purpose tool designed to be carried by personnel either whilst aboard ship or on away missions. The basic functions of a tricorder involved collecting data via a variety of sensors, analysing and processing the data via a compact onboard computer system, and presenting it to the user via a visual display and/or auditory cue.

By the late 2370s Starfleet has moved on to a new generation of tricorder. The majority of the buttons were eliminated in favour of touch-screen controls, developments in touch screen technology having made them robust enough to deal with field conditions. This new unit has no less than 500 sensor units, all of them of a new generation of high-resolution devices. Processing speed reached 500 GFP calculations per second, while total memory increased to 25 kilo quads. The sensor and processing power of the unit was so improved that Starfleet considered this an "all purpose" tricorder, and did not produce a medical version as had been standard practice previously.