Main Mission Computers- Moonbase Alpha Guide

The computers, on a platform to the side of the room. There are 8 "banks" of computers (total length 32 feet/9.75m), each slightly offset in a serrated pattern, with thin illuminated panels facing the front of Main Mission. There are 128 individual panels, with the diverse lighted panels in the 3 middle rows.

Kano did not have a desk in the early episodes. Here he stands by a Boby cart, a familiar feature in Main Mission. It first appears in Matter of Life and Death; in Black Sun the central section becomes brown and red labels are added. A different version of the Boby appears in Command Center.

Note the filing cart and the Boby, both used by the computer banks. The filing cart can have several paper trays slotted into the base.

See original prop panels

The pattern of panels is very regular.

The top panels have a label "X5 computer".
Below, and at the base, are ventilation and access panels, with handles. The ventilation panels were in reality stencilled paint, not real slots.
There are 3 rows of lighted panels
- Top left is normally a coloured chessboard of numbers, letters and symbols. The top right is normally two green charts. Each of these panels had unique colours/symbols or chart lines.
- The middle row is more diverse, but left is normally a panel with handles and a rectangle of small lights, and on right is the yellow/red striped panel.
- On the lowest of the 3 lighted rows are often two types of panels, one with a bottom grey or red half, the other with two horizontal rows of lights.

The panels change every episode. The production would re-use panels for other sets (Medical, computer centre, Eagle passenger module), and if they returned to Main Mission they might be put in another place.

There are two unique panels, a keypad panel and a printer panel, which were often featured. These normally appear in the middle row, but their position changes frequently (and again, these panels would also make guest appearances elsewhere in Alpha).

In Breakaway, the two panels are far apart (keyboard in bank 3, printer in bank 6), but in most other episodes they are alongside each other, either horizontally or vertically, usually in bank 3.

The "Auxilliary Services" hatch. Similar hatches appear throughout Alpha. This first appears in Main Mission on bank 5 in Guardian Of Piri

Later in the series, other designs of computer panels appear. In Ring Around The Moon, we see a variation with vertically mounted slots. This particular panel with appear throughout Alpha for the rest of the two series.

In The Infernal Machine, two new panels types appear. One is a red stripe, the other has multiple horizontal lines of coloured lights. We also start to see lighted panels appearing on row 6 of some of the panels. By Dragon's Domain and Testament Of Arkadia, most of these new panels have gone, and row 6 is blank panels with handles again.