The Megabyte Modem Page

'A megabyte modum!'
-- Doctor Who: The Ultimate Foe, by Pip and Jane Baker (© 1988)

Mel flung the doors of the cabinet wide open. Inside was a technological wonder the likes of which she hadn't seen since the last time the Doctor had emptied his pockets. She recognised it instantly of course.

"A Megabyte Modem!"

So that's how the Valeyard intended to carry out his evil plan!

"Really?" asked the Doctor. "It looks like a power meter in a wooden box with flashing lights and a swimming trophy on top to me."

"I did three laps of the pool for that!" the Valeyard objected, agitated by the Doctor's curt dismissal of his sublime masterpiece. "When it actives, that device will render the courtroom defunct!"

Horrors! The Valeyard's malfeasant contrivance prognosticated calamity for the piteous purveyors of Gallifreyan legislature!

"Oh, now you're just making fun," Mel protested.

Unfortunately for Mel, Pip and Jane were not computer literate at the time when they wrote The Ultimate Foe and they appear to have picked these words on that facts that (a) they both appear in the same computer dictionary, and (b) they alliterate admirably. It could have been worse.

Suggested alternative: "punch-card printer"

Theories

OK, let's make some sense of this... The following are merely theories.

1. Megabyte, the brand name
   Mel paused to look at the display in the computer store window. Half a dozen assorted modems branded with the 'Megabyte' logo were arranged neatly around a tall wooden box with flashing lights. The box was the top-of-the-range model, and Mel had been intending on upgrading to it for some time now.
   The only problem was where to fit it...
2. A one Megabyte baud rate
   "How fast?" the Doctor asked. "I didn't think technology had come quite that far since the dawn of the computer age."
   The Brigadier raised an eyebrow. "You don't think we've just been chucking away all the alien hardware we end up with, do you?"
3. The Gallifreyan Megabyte Modem
   In one of the Doctor's old textbooks, Mel came across a fascinating article on a piece of Gallifreyan technology affectionately branded "a megabyte modem". It was designed to allow matter and energy to pass seemlessly from the material world to the essentially virtual world of the Matrix, allowing physical entry into the repository of Time Lord knowledge.
   The book also pointed out that insane genius with megabyte modem, a particle disseminator and a matrix screen could theoretically project a death ray onto an unsuspecting courtroom.
   "Well," said Mel. "I'd better keep that in mind then."
4. "Exactly how many bottles of brandy have you had this morning, Mel?"
   "Just the three, Doctor..."