Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Tricorders 

Really honored to see my projects in your video. This is a fantastic round up of Tricorder facts and I am thrilled to be a small part of it. Yes my project is a labour of intense love for the Tricorder because in my opinion the Tricorder DEFINES Star Trek as a science fiction offering. No other sci fi takes such pains to give the lowly scanner such top billing. I can't think of any show that gives their scanner device a name, let alone features it prominently right from the very start to the point where it almost becomes a character itself. Every space show has a ray gun or FTL, but only Star Trek has Tricorders. Thanks again for all the love. -Your friend in trek. 🖖 LLAP!

It’s so wild to see people building REAL tri-corders based off of the show. Art definitely influencing reality 😂

Okay, that Pi-Corder is pretty damned badass.

Fun fact, Motorola's original flip phone was called a Communicator. Paramount sued them and Motorola changed the model line to the "Star Tac" afterwards.

When Android was first a thing, there was a super cool tricorder app that displayed data from all your phone’s sensors but also data from various satellites for things like solar wind flux and cosmic rays.

Surprised you didn't quote Jadzia fawning over the old tricorder design

I still have my Playmates TR-560. I remember trying to scan my Christmas presents when I was a kid.

I have a old TNG tricorder still in its box. My son bought it for me. As well as a TOS communicator, some ornaments, dolls and other collectibles. I have great (now adults) kids.

I've wanted a tricorder since I was a kid in the 70s. Fifty years later, I have what's called a smartphone, for which the phone function is the one I use the least, that has way more than three functions. Try saying to a techie "I want to do X," without hearing back, "There's an app for that."

"Something is interfering with the scan..." Must be why it's called a TRY-corder

I now need Badgey to have an equally psychotic companion.

I remember about 10+ years ago there was an Android Tricorder app that used the LCARS interface and used raw data from your phone, including GPS satellite map and signal strength, accelerometer, light meter, Wifi analyzer, cell signal, temperature, and just about every other data channel a phone at the time had. It disappeared after the studio threatened the creator.

It's cool how much tech Star Trek predicted we would have in the future DECADES before the first came out. TOS Communicator = flip cell phone, TNG pads = Ipad. Tricorders? Yea, have a GOOD look at the smart watch....they can detect your vitals AKA life signs, they can help you navigate strange geographic areas AKA GPS, read weather conditions...if that doesn't sound like a mark 1 tricorder I don't know what does.

OMG if I could go back to the 70's and tell my younger self to hold on to those action figures and bridge playset. Not for monetary value but the nostalgia is priceless.

There was another company in the 90s which released an actual functional tricorder: It barely resembled the design and was capable of scanning temperature, something like that. There was an article about that in the 30th anniversary magazine. Just to let you know

I had the Meeco tricorder cassette recorder. I still have the cassette... Unfortunately the ST audio faded away over the years, but on the "blank" side I still have my late mother's and grandfather's voices preserved from 1977 🙂

Loved this episode. ❤️ This was the best, most useful gadget ever created by a sci-fi TV series.

6:00 From the moment I first saw the tricorder closeup on TNG's "The Chase" , it looked the hinge on the prop was falling apart.

Appreciate the info about the little things in Star Trek that we take for granted! 👍

"Da ba dee da ba damned if i know" is iconic.

I remember using an early Phillips “portable cassette recorder” in about 1967 that outwardly looked very like the TOS tricorder complete with black leather case and shoulder strap.

of all your videos, this might be the one that made me most happy and hopeful. It is so amazing and encouraging to see that the science fiction that started coming out in 1966 is now influencing things that can save peoples lives today. THIS IS WHAT STAR TREK WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO BE!

I had wondered what happened to that app. Was surprisingly useful.

A Flipper Zero can do a lot of Tricorder-esque things on it's own, and it also has GPIO so you can add sensors and other peripherals much like a raspberry pi; It has massive potential to become a tricorder of sorts.

The first designation for the tricorder was TR-580, as an homage to the 80s computer TRS-80 (Tandy RadioShack-80 personal microcomputer).

Pure Joy!! 🫶🏽 Thank you!!

What an amazing nostalgic video. Thank you PDM and Alphineus. Luke thank you for sharing your insights and memories. I will say.. I am happy that I’ve been pronouncing Tsojcanth properly all these years!

You forgot the Tricorder that was seen briefly in Star Trek The Motion Picture

This was aswsome!

I have a TNG tricorder keyring somewhere. It would flash lights and make the sound when opened. Must have bought that in the mid nineties.

9:12 It's Tricey! Rutherford made a buddy for Godgey (Badgey)

Mentioned both Klingon and Romulan Tricorders but no Mention of T'Pol's Vulcan version in Enterprise? Or wasn't that Roundish device she carried around classified as such?

Wow. There’s some really gifted people out there who are committed to Star Trek’s vision.

Did you guys forget about the big ole boy from The Wrath of Khan with the pistol grip? Or did I just miss it?

I live in a beach town in Southern California, and your surfer accent is excellent.

The toy tape recorder from the 70s. ‘Why was the tape recorder blue blue - Daba di Daba du, as if I know’ Hilarious 😂

A friend took my ST:TNG Tricorder to an important engineering presentation. Just before they tested the new mechanical device, he whipped out the tricorder complete with flashing lights and beeps to check it was functioning properly. The big honcho pissef himself laughing

Seán, you are a a purely wonderful person, and the epitome of the Star Trek ethos. There really aren’t words to adequately do justice to the meaningful impact you have had on so many people. I feel inspired and invigorated by what you share with this online community. Thank you!!! And… Live Long and Prosper, Health and long life, Cheers, and all those 😊good things to you! I will also say that as much as we love things like the immortal Riker maneuver, I would like to suggest that we give the name “Ferrick Maneuver” to whatever hopeful and good hearted awesomeness may spring forth from the wonderful messages you share ❤️

Mr. Tricorder

I had the TriCorder tape recorder. 🖖🤠

I’ve always loved that the “EMRG” button is riiiiiight where my thumb would naturally go, given my hand size and being a righty. One of the many reasons I was assigned to Starbase 80.

Old? You're not even off the apron strings yet, kid! Loved this, it was absolutely fascinating!

I always thought the original Tricorder was based on the designs of cassette recorders of the day (starting in the U.S. around 1965). At the time, the cassette recorders were the newest tech and everybody wanted one! The black leatherette case and shoulder straps were common at the time in many cheap Japanese cassette recorders. There was a cassette recorder made by Lloyd's of Japan, that had a sloped keyboard panel (it used the push button keys instead of a "T" switch (Philips) and it came with a very nice leatherette case and strap. It sort of looked and felt like a tricorder of the time. it also sounded pretty good and worked well. Some advertisements showed people carrying their cassette recorders in theri leather cases picnics and about town, hanging from the straps, looking a lot like the Enterprise crew. The MEGO toy simply put IN the cassette mechanism. It looks like they adapted a cheap cassette recorder for the job, and made the appearance different enough from the show (hence it was blue) to avoid a copyright claim against them. Also, at the time the show was being produced, "velour" shirts were a "thing". "Velour" was a type of fake velvet. So, no surprise to see Spock and Kirk et all wearing them. The velour fabric also appeared on the "Lost in Space" costumes.

The Army Chemical Corps has something incredible like a tricorder called a true defender. It's this small box with this bendy laser bit. You point the laser at anything and it will tell you what the thing is made of. There are also a variety of "sniffers" that can test the air for anything at the most expensive and specific things at the cheap end.

great stuff

How did you know that my Spock figure talked to me in a dream?

People talking about tricorders always seem to forget the 90s Texas instruments tricorder, sold as a trek inspired "First tricorder" this hand held smart phone looking device scanned and measured magnetic fields, botanical fields and weather related ( humidity, pressure, heat). At the time it was priced at £500 approx and was advertised for 2 years before vanishing, amazingly at the same time as the "Star trek original series inspired hypo spray , a needleless hand held pen like device that uses compressed air to deliver a spray of medication fine enough to pass through the skin, allowing diabetics to 'inject' without a painful needle" was announced, advertised then never heard of again (by the public).

I remember these 70's Star Trek toys as a kid.

I seem to remember back in the 90s (or maybe very early 2000s) there was a Tricorder Mk. I released that could do a few things. Just did a quick search...yep, back in 1996. Even see one available on eBay right now!

Great video, more of this, less Discovery.

I think of programming lidar, stereo digital cameras and stereo digital microphones to create VR models of objects around the tricorder in 3d and real time! That would be my first pass at a mobile sensor platform. You could investigate the resulting VR models of people places and things from any angle, stopping and rewinding and fast forwarding. THAT would be pretty cool! With digital input, you could calculate things like the light sources, colors and strengths, the origins of sounds, who said what and when... just wow

interesting , Thank You

Wow the number 2 one. Amazing

Did you just paraphrase Your Disco Needs You? Just when I thought I couldn't love you more.

1:58 Wow, look at that panel on the wall -- It looks like they gave a 6th grader had a hand drill and told him to arrange the holes for the lights into a grid pattern.

Haven’t watched the video yet but I saw the Star Trek 25th Anniversary exhibit at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum when I was a teen. One thing that struck me when I saw some of the TNG props was one: they were not detailed. It was just painted buttons, no labels or anything on them. Two, and this was most surprising, they were made of WOOD! The TOYS actually looked better! Obviously they weren’t hero props but I was still surprised.

6:11 the handheld scanner is called Fienberger scanner.

That's pretty neat. Tridorders themsleves are such a good addition to the genera.

Wow, Mr Chang really kept himself busy

My Aunt was operated on over 25 years ago using Sonic Scalpels and a Blue Laser was used to seal capillaries and fuse tissues.

I preferred the 345 model. It had been voted Tricorder of the Year Best Budget Model three years running. The 345 out-performed the 346 in eight out of nine bench tests.

I do remember the Voyager tricorders got blue LEDs in the last seasons hehe

Great video! I like the shout out to fan made Picorders too! I'm working on an Open-Source commercial Tricorder I am calling a "Scicorder" inspired by the Nemesis Tricorder without the LCARS display as that seems to be the main thing that got the Android Tricorder App taken down..

what is a amazing is the tricorder's naming method, remain the same, instead of changing to a new naming sequence every decade or so, based on whatever naming committee decides is 'hip' or 'accurate

I loved my motorola startac..... it was awesome. And tough as nails in my experience.

in 1996, Vital Technologies made a real life working (kinda) tricorder. It was called the TR-107 Mark 1 and cost like $400

7:58 Jem Hardarm-band

Wait, I've been using a Picard-era Tricorder for the past two years!?

I had two Panasonic tape recorders that had carrying cases with the black strap that looked just like what Spock and Dr. McCoy carry on every landing party

HA! Good stuff! That was fun.

Oh wow! I want one of those manuals. Also... voyager upgraded their equipment when ever they got a communication from earth, ans then they could replicate new ones. They kept their uniforms and the maquis ones to remember where they came from

That ai prompt gave me chills, the fact that there's a app based off the emh is nuts

😆 👍👍 I completely forgot about Ricardo's presentation for creating a tricorder IRL.

GREAT!!!

Cool into My Dude! 👍 I'm a old as Star Trek, born in '66. 🤣

It will be so wild when we have the technology to build a real tricorder that has the capability to actually scan everything the series purports that it can do

From the TNG episode “Rightful Heir” Kahless: Tricorder? Is it a weapon? Worf: No, no it is a Tool. 8:04 Jim Payne from the channel Trek World has MULTIPLE videos about the Mego toys.

if you're wondering, I bought that "soon to be released" handbook on January 26th, according to my Amazon history.

You missed two bullet points for your show. (Both sorta obscure) A 'working' Tricorder was created in the 1990's and even put on sale for a short time. The other is the Caterpillar S61 phone with air quality sensor, laser measuring device and a thermal camera, all in the space of a cell phone, which that's exactly what it was.

The best places to find "hints" are the star trek magazine that have the briefings.

You had me at PiCorder! 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

The Wand Company is never releasing that thing, they've been working on it for so long and I swear the dev log has just gone dead

i`d love to have one of those new Tricorders !!!!

In TOS episode City on the Edge of Forever, Spock had to use "little more than bear claws and stone tools" to fix his tricorder; vacuum tube technology.🤣

I had the TNG tricorder toy when I was a kid.

You could do something similar with the more advanced ti calculators and they had real good sensors you could add to them.

This reminds me that I had a model-airplane-kit-style tricorder and phaser I glued together back in the day. Good times. Did I miss the part where the tricorder explodes?

You forgot the Vulcan tricorder used in Enterprise.

Nice... But can it read Midichlorian counts? (Sarcasm)

I read something back in the early 90s that said Rodenberry left provisions in his papers that anyone who actually created something that appeared in Star Trek - such as a tricorder - that worked as it was supposed to in real life, they would be allowed to use the name. Has anyone else read or heard this?

I need to check out the picorder.

Oohhh tricorders!

I can imagine a device similar to a Tricorder becoming popular in the near future.

TR-566? - Tell me Radio Shack makes a comeback in the 22nd century!

I would like to see, top 10 Star Trek aliens/things we’ve seen enough of No 1 being the Borg of course 😉😂

EMRG: Emergency Memory Relay Generator? I know I'm overthinking it too much.

The tricorder is my favorite piece of tech in the Trek universe. Every so often I wonder if it would really be possible to make one and realize that to the extent they were used on the show, the answer is an unfortunate and resounding no. So many of the functions from the show would require wired probes to work, and I'm not sure if that will ever change, but it's fun to fantasize.

Borg Queen: Why carry around a tricorder, when you can BE ONE!

8:23 You're telling me The Migos made Star Trek toys before they got into music?

It also has a hidden marital aid option.