So, you’ve seen the tablets everyone uses in the comics. It’s time we explained them in a little more detail.
The tablets are the final and greatest brainchild of Overlord Rex, Fox’s predecessor. Fox also helped make Rex’s last wish a reality but the seeds were planted in the final years of her reign. Rex wanted the islands to have access to affordable technology designed to make life easier for everyone and help with education, organization, and communication. Thus the tablets were born.
(It should be noted that Rex had no concept of how to make computers, how they worked, or the work involved into making her dream a reality. She just said ‘Make this happen’ and thanks to an influx of money from a certain elven accountant, it became a more feasible reality for R&D.)
The tablets use a custom operating system developed by R&D via trial and error. It took a few years but they managed to do it. The operating system was dubbed ‘RexOS’ after the one who wanted to see the project to fruition. As they are a custom OS using Aukate exclusive hardware they are not anything someone with a computer from the outside could use.
Data works via two tiers of information. One level is designed for basic access to news feeds and messaging that is ‘soft’ information access via cloud. Because of this anyone can snag a public tablet and log into their account and access their feeds. Then there are personal tablets capable of storing information and personal programs. You can also carry a datastick that can be plugged into public tablets that allows you to access some of it, but as public tablets aren’t as powerful as private ones, most people only use them for basic programs and documents.
A tablet’s design consists of a semi translucent screen and a bar attached to the top and bottom. The screen is specially treated glass (or plexiglass) that images are projected into while the bars contain the guts of the tablets. You could shatter the screen and your tablet could still be perfectly fine with a replacement screen as long as the bars remain intact. The bottom bar has a port you can plug a datastick into. And private models are fancier and more complicated than the ones you often see used including cellphone sized ones and foldable tablets akin to private laptops. The public tablets are designed to be simple and thus a lot of the frills are missing.
The Calender island internet is called ‘RexNet’ and does not extend beyond the islands, nor does it access the world outside. A tenacious enough person might be able to manage it, but as the islands are trying to keep hidden people who are caught doing this are strongly encouraged to stop. RexNet is used for shopping, personal web pages, and information. Most libraries have books available for download via RexNet, you can use it to take classes, and a lot of the other basics we use internet for.
Most houses have a main ‘hub’ as well that stores their data and acts as a central computer system that people can use via terminals linked to it. To access them you plug your tablet into a large cradle and it acts like a computer monitor. The hubs have keyboards built in so the tablet becomes something similar to a desktop computer.
The network and many of the cloud servers are maintained by chimenticore under contract from the Overlord. Measures have been taken to keep them from forming a monopoly over it as they have with the transportation system, but their tunnels and underground spaces and their ability to maintain the transmission towers has been vital to keeping RexNet and RexOS up and running almost flawlessly.
There are many games available and lots of other things akin to their mainland counterparts. Aukate has two large gaming companies that produce big budget games a lot of little independant developers who make smaller ones. There are also finance programs and anything else someone might need. If there’s a need, there’s someone willing to make the program.
The operating system usually has one minor update a month and one major update a year. The tablet technology continues to improve but the prevalence of the tablets makes keeping up with the times relatively easy. Tablets are almost free, and the only real expense comes from upgrading the household hub and adding extra features or buying a fancy personal tablet with a lot of bells and whistles (the equivalent of buying an extra good graphics card or such.)
The only issue many people have with the tablets is that deleting a file does not mean that file is necessarily gone. The hubs in the households often keep the data despite the erasure and pass it along to larger and large hubs until it’s stored away. This is why many people buy tablets with detachable memory modules that they simply remove and destroy if they want to truly delete their data, and even then it might end up in the main hub anyway.
I've probably forgotten a detail or three, but this should answer most of your questions.
The tablets are the final and greatest brainchild of Overlord Rex, Fox’s predecessor. Fox also helped make Rex’s last wish a reality but the seeds were planted in the final years of her reign. Rex wanted the islands to have access to affordable technology designed to make life easier for everyone and help with education, organization, and communication. Thus the tablets were born.
(It should be noted that Rex had no concept of how to make computers, how they worked, or the work involved into making her dream a reality. She just said ‘Make this happen’ and thanks to an influx of money from a certain elven accountant, it became a more feasible reality for R&D.)
The tablets use a custom operating system developed by R&D via trial and error. It took a few years but they managed to do it. The operating system was dubbed ‘RexOS’ after the one who wanted to see the project to fruition. As they are a custom OS using Aukate exclusive hardware they are not anything someone with a computer from the outside could use.
Data works via two tiers of information. One level is designed for basic access to news feeds and messaging that is ‘soft’ information access via cloud. Because of this anyone can snag a public tablet and log into their account and access their feeds. Then there are personal tablets capable of storing information and personal programs. You can also carry a datastick that can be plugged into public tablets that allows you to access some of it, but as public tablets aren’t as powerful as private ones, most people only use them for basic programs and documents.
A tablet’s design consists of a semi translucent screen and a bar attached to the top and bottom. The screen is specially treated glass (or plexiglass) that images are projected into while the bars contain the guts of the tablets. You could shatter the screen and your tablet could still be perfectly fine with a replacement screen as long as the bars remain intact. The bottom bar has a port you can plug a datastick into. And private models are fancier and more complicated than the ones you often see used including cellphone sized ones and foldable tablets akin to private laptops. The public tablets are designed to be simple and thus a lot of the frills are missing.
The Calender island internet is called ‘RexNet’ and does not extend beyond the islands, nor does it access the world outside. A tenacious enough person might be able to manage it, but as the islands are trying to keep hidden people who are caught doing this are strongly encouraged to stop. RexNet is used for shopping, personal web pages, and information. Most libraries have books available for download via RexNet, you can use it to take classes, and a lot of the other basics we use internet for.
Most houses have a main ‘hub’ as well that stores their data and acts as a central computer system that people can use via terminals linked to it. To access them you plug your tablet into a large cradle and it acts like a computer monitor. The hubs have keyboards built in so the tablet becomes something similar to a desktop computer.
The network and many of the cloud servers are maintained by chimenticore under contract from the Overlord. Measures have been taken to keep them from forming a monopoly over it as they have with the transportation system, but their tunnels and underground spaces and their ability to maintain the transmission towers has been vital to keeping RexNet and RexOS up and running almost flawlessly.
There are many games available and lots of other things akin to their mainland counterparts. Aukate has two large gaming companies that produce big budget games a lot of little independant developers who make smaller ones. There are also finance programs and anything else someone might need. If there’s a need, there’s someone willing to make the program.
The operating system usually has one minor update a month and one major update a year. The tablet technology continues to improve but the prevalence of the tablets makes keeping up with the times relatively easy. Tablets are almost free, and the only real expense comes from upgrading the household hub and adding extra features or buying a fancy personal tablet with a lot of bells and whistles (the equivalent of buying an extra good graphics card or such.)
The only issue many people have with the tablets is that deleting a file does not mean that file is necessarily gone. The hubs in the households often keep the data despite the erasure and pass it along to larger and large hubs until it’s stored away. This is why many people buy tablets with detachable memory modules that they simply remove and destroy if they want to truly delete their data, and even then it might end up in the main hub anyway.
I've probably forgotten a detail or three, but this should answer most of your questions.