>>>I'd always wondered why on the Galactica (the late 1970s version) it takes so much typing by Omega at his console to raise sheilds and activate shipboard defense batteries... Was he using some sort of command-line interface based on COBOL? Or was he typing text messages to the other bridge officers to relay the command?
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>>As that guy who made Babylon 5 said "it all happens at the speed of plot". You can see that on the example of the speed of light in Star Trek: if you fire an energy weapon inside a room, it takes about one second to travel to the other end of it. If you fire the same kind of weapon between ships, it again takes the same time to cover the few kilometers of distance. However, the simple room light shines on the whole room in 1/60th of a second (1/50th in Europe, where light is slower).
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>Actually the light will flash 100 times per second in Europe, both on the positive and the negative phase.

Ah, I didn't realize. It must be the + waves are on odd, and - waves on the even scanlines of the TV... or my monitor.