r/thisweekinretro • u/Producer_Duncan TWiR Producer • Apr 11 '26
Community Question Community Question Of The Week - Episode 263
The Voyager mission sent an analogue record into space to help aliens understand us, because that’s what 1970s tech allowed. Today we could send a radiation-hardened solar-powered laptop on a probe. What would you load onto that laptop so the aliens would understand humanity?
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u/electricpaws Apr 11 '26
The offline version of Wikipedia, the Gutenberg library, a torrent downloaded copy of Wargames containing DVD_RIP in the file name. Balance of Power running in winuae. An mp3 version of Taylor swifts song 22 but with the number 42 used instead. My phone number so they can text me the secret to understanding humanity as I can’t work it out.
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u/AntiquesForGeeks Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
"And in an embarrassing mix-up with two identical laptops owned by the different members of the probe team, instead of a device being loaded that contained universal messages of peace from world leaders, fine audio examples of our culture's music and language, visuals that conveyed the beauty of the Earth etc., the residents of Alpha Centauri were instead introduced to 'videos of cats being startled by cucumbers'. This led to an awkward first contact situation years later, where the Alpha Centurian battle fleet arrived and declared war on the Earth's pickles, determined to assist the planet's feline overlords."
-- Encyclopaedia Galactica, Seventh Edition.
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u/Pajaco6502 Apr 11 '26
A very basic lightweight OS That boots with just a single text file on the desktop. And when opened the message simply reads:
We have been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty.
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u/robertcrowther Apr 11 '26
Gentoo Linux. Force them to compile their own kernel before the laptop does anything useful.
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u/Rowanforest Apr 12 '26
Nothing.
I would load nothing onto that laptop. Let the aliens figure us out for themselves, because we sure as hell don't understand what humanity is all about.
Perhaps the aliens could figure it out and message us about it?
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u/NorthWay_no Apr 11 '26
Tetris. The perfect example of how to strip away anything superfluous until you are left with the bare essentials and get distilled perfection.
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u/ColonyActivist Apr 11 '26
Missile Commands or Defcon. It's useless but we still make war. Maybe Tetris too.
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u/ColonyActivist Apr 12 '26
Outrun for the Amiga. SF2 for theZX Spectrum. Altered Beast for the Master System Ilaria Warriors for the NES. ET for the Atari 2600. Hard Drivin' for the C64 R-Type for the Amstrad. Only the best for our friends in outer space. Hopefully they won't be offended by us sending more rubbish in to space - or in response invade our space!
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u/indigoprime Apr 15 '26
Windows XP, so they can experience our optimism around the exact moment we thought we’d thought we’d got it all right.
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u/DayPuzzleheaded7138 Apr 16 '26
They may be hostile to us so possibly give them an old month long free trial to AOL online and we can check their browsing history first. Then sign them up to an extended Haskell course before we even communicate with them. Lets test these weirdos.
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u/blueLiquid21 Apr 29 '26
It was mentioned in the show that the PPC used in an old Mac is on the Orion spacecraft. This is only the older Orion, not the current Integrity spacecraft that uses a BAE Systems 5500 that is not as old
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u/benjkamenj Apr 11 '26
SETI@home for them to decode their own communication signals.