>>>Several decades ago, I do remember seeing a joke program titled something like "Realistic Spaceflight Simulator". The introduction states how this program shows you a "realistic depiction" of actual spaceflight to nearby Alpha Centauri using currently-available technology -- in real time. When you press a key to begin the voyage, the screen changes to a starfield and a running time elapsed display. Being that the program was written in interpretive BASIC, you could easily look at the program code. Perhaps not surprising there isn't much to the program -- and is obvious that user was never meant to actually finish the game. I did find it amusing that examination of the loop code between "start" end "arrived" display, revealed that the loop would take on the order of several tens of thousands of years to complete.
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>>Should be updated for a 24 - 34 year time frame: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot
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>This of course raises a question -- would there be a computer system that is capable to be running for the necessary amount of time (decades-long timespan) ?
>https://www.computerworld.com/article/3162416/booted-up-in-1993-this-server-still-runs-but-not-for-much-longer.html
>hrm... perhaps they do exist... I'm assuming that this computer system was running while being at least having some maintenance performed on it.
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>Always did find it amusing how TV and movie computers seem to have incredibly long lifespans -- often on the order of centuries or even millennia. But it only takes a bit of illogic or contradiction to cause them to fail spectacularly in a shower of sparks. Of course, if such computers had some form of AI, I'd imagine they could "go a bit peculiar" like Holly in "Red Dwarf" simply go mad like Box in "Logan's Run"

There's that often-seen theme in SF stories that involve a journey of a "slowboat" (with travel time measured on the order of centuries) finally arrives at its destination, only to have the crew (either original crew that had been put into suspended animation, or perhaps descendants of the original crew) discover that the planet has already been colonized - by Earth. The explanation given is only a few decades since the launch of this probe, some form of FTL is perfected that allows later ships to arrive much sooner. As for the reason why the ship was allowed to continue with the long journey, it was apparently presumed lost because of loss of telemetry from an equipment failure.