There are a lot of amazing solutions on this page. Things that I haven't even thought about, but why do we have to assume that a data reader cannot be kept in t

There are a lot of amazing solutions on this page. Things that I haven't even thought about, but why do we have to assume that a data reader cannot be kept in the capsule itself? Why should we create something of arbitrary complexity that will cause people to just tear their hair out in frustration? Since the basics of logic will not change and since theoretically any computer can simulate another. Why shouldn't we just keep a hackable computer with detailed visual instructions and specifications? Further, to enable someone to read the specifications we could have a "learning board" with the symbol and the component next to it. Also, we could even have a haptic output with which people can interact with the computer. Let's assume that we have a nuclear battery made out of Technetium. Now this feeds into a bank of capacitors and high performance rechargeable cells. Slowly over time the batteries are kept topped off and they are "exercised" by the computer. Further, for redundancy 4 or more computing units in parallel could be placed that would wake up sequentially and call the others to check how the entire unit is working. If we keep something like this in a hermetically sealed environment and we use the radiation source to manage the temperature and use passive cooling technologies for letting out heat. It should be able to sit still until someone finds it. Now the data itself would be stored on a series of solid state devices [edit: a specially designed optical storage medium would be far better, but this is 50 years not 1050.] attached to a display. Why shouldn't this suffice? Presuming that civilization has not collapsed anyone should be able to read it. By the way, the Phoenix lander has a DVD that tries to do just this (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)#Phoenix_DVD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)#Phoenix_DV...). It even has this awesome intro by Carl Sagan. (hear: http://www.planetary.org/special/vomgreetings/greet2/SAGAN.html http://www.planetary.org/special/vomgreetings/greet2/SAGAN.h...) [edit: Dyslexic errors.]