Desktop monitor

A desktop monitor was a personal computer console used as early as 2151 aboard starships and starbases by space-faring organizations such as Earth Starfleet and the Federation Starfleet, the Cardassian Union, and the Klingon Empire. These devices were used for personal library computer retrieval and for visual communications.

Desktop monitors were also commonly used by civilians living on such planets as Earth, Romulus and Cardassia.

22nd century
During the 22nd century, Starfleet employed at least two styles of desktop monitors aboard its deep space vessels and at Starfleet Headquarters.

Flat panel monitor
Used aboard such vessels as the starship  as early as 2151, flat panel monitors, similar to those utilized in the bridge consoles, were placed in all officers' quarters.

Consisting of a simple touch-sensitive screen, this flat panel monitor was distinguished by two rows of gray and white buttons lining the bottom and right-hand side of the screen.

As in future incarnations, this monitor allowed the user a wide variety of data retrieval as well as log recordings and access to subspace communications, enabling face-to-face conference.

These monitors were also in use at Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco, Earth, during the 22nd century. 

Three-sided monitor
Also used at Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco as early as 2154 was a distinct, three-sided monitor.

Found in conference rooms, this multifaceted monitor featured three display screens, arranged in a triangular shape and allowing multiple users to view data simultaneously. It also featured a touch-sensitive screen and a small row of buttons just beneath the display. 

A similar monitor was located at the center of a large console in the main laboratory of Cold Station 12. 

23rd century
During the 23rd century, Starfleet employed at least two styles of desktop monitors aboard its deep space vessels.

Standard monitor
A standard desktop monitor employed as early as 2266 aboard such Federation vessels as the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), and at the Janus VI colony, was a large, free-standing model.

Sitting on a heavy base in which tapes could be inserted, this desktop viewer featured a large monitor, blue-gray in color. 

A flatter and more compact variant of this monitor was in use aboard Federation starships as early as 2268. Consisting of the same basic design as the standard model, this monitor did not include the heavy base, nor the interface options below the display screen. One such monitor was located in the Captain's quarters aboard the USS Defiant (NCC-1764), lost to an interphasic rift. 

Three-sided monitor
Also in service aboard Constitution-class starships, a three-sided monitor, similar in design to those used a century earlier by Earth Starfleet, was often found in a Federation starship's briefing room.

Resembling the top portion of the single-faceted viewer, this three-sided monitor featured screens facing away from each other in three directions and sat on a conference table aboard such ships as the Enterprise. It could be controlled by button pads embedded in the tabletop. 

24th century
Throughout the 24th century, Starfleet utilized varying styles of monitors, some based on function, with others differing only in aesthetics.

Galaxy-class
Common aboard starships such as the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) – as well as other ships commissioned during the 2360s – desktop monitors were available for use in many personal spaces aboard ship.

Used in such areas as crew quarters and in the captain's ready room, these small desktop monitors were often black with white accents, or cream-colored with dark accents. These monitors featured a touch-sensitive monitor and a large control button.

These monitors were capable of a wide variety of functions, utilizing the LCARS network common aboard Starfleet vessels in the 24th century. They were also sometimes used for secure communications. (, et al.)

Starbases
Utilized by Starfleet personnel serving on Federation starbases and at Federation colonies such as starbase Deep Space 9, Starbase 375, Jupiter Station, and the Volan III colony, a large desktop monitor was available as early as 2369.

Metallic silver in color, this style of monitor featured an irregular, square shape with display and input areas of roughly the same size. Some models featured additional button pads as well as ports capable of reading isolinear rods.

Despite the common use of other styles of desktop viewer, this type was available for use aboard such Starfleet vessels as the USS Bellerophon (NCC-74705) and at Starfleet Headquarters. 

Intrepid-class
In service during their launch during the early 2370s, Intrepid-class starships such as the USS Voyager were equipped with yet another style of desktop monitor.

Ranging in color from gray to green, these monitors were also used in personal areas, as well as in sickbay and consisted of a rounded design, consistent with the aesthetics of the Intrepid-class. (, et al.)

This monitor was capable of interfacing with the upper part of a TR-590 Starfleet tricorder and projecting a recording from the tricorder onto the monitor. 

Sovereign-class
For officers serving aboard vessels in the 2370s, at least two styles of monitor was available for use by Starfleet officers.

One such style featured a monitor that laid flush against its base, rising up when activated by the user, or when receiving an incoming communique. Such a monitor was used by Enterprise-E captain Jean-Luc Picard as early as 2373 until it was replaced some time around 2375 by a stationary model. 

By the year 2379, both such desktop monitors had been replaced in the captain's ready room by a single, flat-panel viewer that existed as part of the desktop and rose up when activated from a small control panel embedded in the desk.

In use aboard Sovereign-class quarters during that time was yet another style of flat-panel monitor, this one free-standing and silver in color. 

25th century


In an alternate 2404, desktop monitors at Starfleet Headquarters had a clear glass back and a much thicker base than its 24th century counterparts. 

Cardassian
Like the Federation in the 24th century, the more than one type of desktop monitor was available to civilians and military personnel in the Cardassian Union.

Small monitor
Also sharing similarities with the Federation design used aboard Galaxy-class vessels at the time, Cardassian military officers like those serving at the secret base on Celtris III used a distinctive desktop monitor.

Like the Romulan design, this monitor featured the same basic shape as the Federation design, enhanced stylistically with typical Cardassian brown and tan coloration and large structural changes. The display screen, for example, featured a large oval-shaped frame and was larger than its Starfleet issue counterpart. 

Desktop viewscreen
Similar to the typical viewscreen used aboard Terok and Empok Nor-type space stations and cruisers, a second style of Cardassian monitor utilized a holographic projection system as early as 2369.

Resembling the larger, frame-like viewscreens in service around the 2360s and '70s, this desktop viewscreen consisted of a horizontal rectangular-shaped structure, mostly hollow, until active. The image of the communique would then appear within the oval-shaped frame, until deactivation.

Such a device was in service aboard starbase Deep Space 9, even after Cardassian withdrawal, and on Cardassia Prime. One was used by Garak in his tailor shop on the Promenade. 

Display monitor
Another type of monitor was closer to the standard monitors used by other races in the Alpha Quadrant, and was similar to the display screens used aboard Cardassian stations. A monitor of this type was used by Commander Kira Nerys, Elim Garak, and Damar to watch Weyoun's announcement of the Dominion attack on Lactran city in 2375. 

Earth civilian
As early as 2367, desktop monitors used by civilians living on Earth in some instances consisted of brownish-gray consoles with square-shaped displays and an abundance of buttons and touch-pads.

These monitors were roughly the size of those used aboard Federation starships at the time and served the same basic function, if bearing a less stylized design. 

Klingon
Like much of the equipment in use aboard Imperial Klingon starships, the desktop monitors in the living quarters aboard Birds-of-Prey (like the one commanded by Captain K'Vada in 2368) were brown in color.

Similar in design to Earth civilian desktop monitors, these Klingon devices were generalized in shape, bearing a display screen and keyboard area. Unlike Earth viewers, however, the Klingon monitor utilized knobs and buttons, rather than touch-sensitive surfaces. 

Yet another Klingon monitor design consisted of a free-standing monitor with an irregular and angular display screen. 

Romulan
Sharing many of the same design features as the monitors used aboard the Galaxy-class starship of the 2360s, members of the Romulan Senate had at least one type of desktop monitor at their disposal as early as 2368.

As with many things Romulan, this desktop viewer was green in color and featured several square blocks added onto its strucutre and an irregularly-shaped display screen. 

Species 8472
One of the more unusual examples of desktop-style monitors comes from fluidic space and the realm of Species 8472, a non-humanoid society.

Observed in their recreation of Starfleet Headquarters, Earth in the distant Delta Quadrant, this personal computer terminal may have been tailored to their temporarily humanoid form. While it was larger and more elaborate in appearance than its Alpha and Beta Quadrant counterparts, this monitor seemed to be suited for use by Humans, with a small display screen and tactile controls below. When inactive, the display screen glowed blue. 

Trill
Available to civilian members of the Trill species, a square, flat-panel-style desktop monitor could be found in homes on such distant worlds as New Sydney during the 2370s.

Consisting of a mounted display screen and flat, wireless keypad, the Trill terminal presented information in green and yellow colored text. 

Related topics

 * Optical data net service access

Background information
One of the most familiar yet innocuous props to appear in nearly every produced episode of Star Trek and at least four of the films, these computer terminals were never given a formal name.

Referred to by Michael and Denise Okuda's Star Trek Encyclopedia as simply "viewer", this device appears in production design sketches labeled "desktop viewer" and in behind the scenes references like Terry J. Erdmann's The Secrets of Star Trek: Insurrection as "desktop monitor".

Closely resembling today's laptop or notebook computers, modern portable computers seem to have actually surpassed 24th century technology, producing ultra small models weighing less than 1.7 kilograms. Modern computers, however, lacking subspace communications and access to the sheer amount of information stored within the fictional future computer processors of Star Trek.

Captain Picard's familiar black and white terminal was once mass-produced during the 1990s as a lights-and-sound piggy bank.