Fabricated Tech
Overview
Fabricated tech refers to the recycling of existing LMNL modules, electronics, mechanical components, and other raw materials in the creation of new custom modules and devices. Fabricated tech is made by hand or using fabricators.
Fabricated tech is extremely convenient due to its size (legacy components are smaller than their LMNL counterparts), customizability, and reusability. Fabrication is all about building, breaking down, or recompiling the technology that you need as you need it, reusing the same components and materials. As the practice has matured, standard practices and widely accessible, commoditized specs have promoted interoperability and modularity across a wide range of fabrications.
Fabricators can be found across Greater Atla and throughout much of the world, making fabrication and common components available to customers—for a price, of course. High-end or black-market "fab labs" generally have higher-grade fabricators, stock rarer components, and may even staff highly skilled compilers who can hand-compile more exotic, bespoke tech, unconstrained by hard-code frameworks like LMNL.
On the market, some components can get quite expensive, such as legacy components, COGs, hand-compiled hard-code, and components made with exotic materials, like static nodes.
The Craft and its Practitioners
Designing the specification for a fabricated product (whether a system, module, component, or a simple print) is called "speccing", particularly when concerning macro-scale architectures, and generally with regards to simpler fabs.
Skilled makers who write spec scripts for computational components are called "coders". The term coder is also a broader term encapsulating anyone who works with code, from coders who write "iso" scripts (self-contained, or "isolated", code that can be stored on re-writable data sticks), to code-brained researchers who obsess over theory, exotic physical functions, ontology design, high-level architecture, and so on.
Designing computational hard-code components for fabrication is called "coding". The "compilation" (fabrication) of hard code script requires the corresponding compiler. These days, most coders use LMNL when writing so its compiler is ubiquitous, however older or more specialized specs coded using obscure frameworks do exist, often making them highly-sought after, extremely difficult to compile, or both. Those rare few coders who can hand-compile raw hard code are referred to within the practice as "compilers", and they grow fewer in number as the impact of the Reconstruction fades with each new generation.
The term fabricator can refer to an individual or more generally to any service provider, such as an enterprise, and typically isn't a precise enough term in practice. Individuals or enterprises who provide simple consumer fabrication services are often referred to as "printers" (or simply "fabricators"). Individuals skilled in custom fabrication are called "makers". Laborers trained in installing, servicing, or replacing modules and larger systems are called "techs" (a common occupation for operators across Greater Atla).
Fabricators
Fabricators are state-of-the-art 3D printers and LMNL compilers that integrate the electronic and mechanical components provided, along with new hard coded modules, all printed inside of a hard shell made from a polymer nanocomposite. Components can be anything from screens, buttons, and information storage, to speakers, ports, transmitters and receivers.
Generative Fabrication
If size, shape or aesthetics aren’t of particular concern, fabricated tech’s layout and form factor can be generated on demand by high-end modern fabricators with integrated COGs. However, COGs significantly increase the size and cost of generative fabricators, making them too large and expensive for most private citizens to own. Generative fabricators can be found commonly throughout GATA, and beyond.
Design Considerations
By supplying a fabricator with various electronic components, including legacy tech components, a user can generate a device that works as they require. The more functionality required by the device, the larger its form factor due to the number of components and the size of LMNL modules.
Fab size and shape can be controlled with skilled component selection, component layout, and custom form design. Fabs can have sealed unibody designs, can be fabricated in multiple pieces, and can include intricate mechanical structures like hinges, sockets, buttons, dials, and so on.
Standard Dimensions
Fabricated tech is often produced at standard LMNL module dimensions so that the device can be plugged or integrated into other larger systems.
Unregulated Fabricated Tech
In Free Territories and Gray Zones, fabricated tech doesn’t always comply with NDA regulations and might not use LMNL to integrate components. It isn’t uncommon to find fabs built instead using raw hardcode to integrate legacy components. This means unregulated fabricated tech can be much smaller, but it is left vulnerable to the Daemon virus and other threats.
History
Fabricated tech came into prominence during the Reconstruction as an effective way to repurpose existing tech by breaking it down into components and recombining them to create safe, purpose-built tech. In the early Reconstruction, there were no fabricators, and in fact the first “fabricators” were skilled technicians who would serve their community as a tradesperson. This job is not very common anymore, however some professional hand fabricators do still exist.
NDA Compliance
In GATA, fabricated personal tech is required by AIC regulation to be “immediately scrutable”. Fabricated tech that isn’t easily cleared upon visual inspection is subject to confiscation or destructive inspection by the Local Authority or any lawful agents of GATA, such as deputized operators.
As a result of this “scrutibility” requirement, it has become commonplace in GATA for citizens to fabricate their tech’s body using a translucent polymer nanocomposite. This makes fabs easily inspected, their clear, plastic-like body revealing any internal components and LMNL modules.
An Emergent Style Trend
The translucent body design trend has also made it fashionable to show off rare components, embed lights and displays, and explore creative form factor designs. This flashy trend of emphasizing and embellishing fabs is relatively new and is particularly popular among the youth.
Prior to translucent bodies, most fabricated tech was designed so that it could be easily opened, with removable components, and were often even handmade.
However, modern fabricators have made it possible to use more advanced materials and processes, allowing for the emergence of fully-sealed, translucent nanopolymer casings of any shape. The translucent body has in turn opened up more options for component layouts that would have been hard or impossible to inspect before.
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