One other portable device that bears mention is Lt. Farmans microfiche reader.
Farman checks Morbius’ information.
When the officers originally learn Morbius’ name, Farman fetches the device from a drawer. It is a small, metallic square box about the size of a pack of playing cards. He withdraws one of a set of thin transparent sheets of microfiche held in a pocket on the back, and inserts it to a slot at the top of the device. The device magnifies the contents of the sheet for the viewer, who can scroll by pulling the microfiche up and down. The particular microfiche displays all of the manifest information from the Bellerophon expedition, which Farman uses to verify Morbius information.
Farman looks for Julia Marsin on the Bellerephon’s manifest.
Farman uses an even smaller version of this device in the field, which consists of a small, lipstick-sized cylinder with a slit, through which he passes the same film to check for a “Mrs. Morbius.”
Though this seems like miniaturization that is far ahead of its time, microforms and optical magnification had been around and used to compactly store data since the mid 1800s. This device is an extension of these optical concepts, rather than modern digital media which only reached similar portable sizes in the early 2000s.