Star Trek game in BASIC
Charles Richmond
contains a Star Trek game in BASIC. There is even a version in
_101 BASIC Computer Games_, edited again by Dave Ahl, although
this version is under the deceptive title of "SPACWR".
In the magazines BYTE, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobb's, and
Interface Age, were there ever any versions of the BASIC game
Star Trek??? Can someone post the date of the issues containing
these listings???
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond richmond at plano dot net |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Stan Barr
>I am aware that _BASIC Computer Games_, edited by David Ahl,
>contains a Star Trek game in BASIC. There is even a version in
>_101 BASIC Computer Games_, edited again by Dave Ahl, although
>this version is under the deceptive title of "SPACWR".
>
>In the magazines BYTE, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobb's, and
>Interface Age, were there ever any versions of the BASIC game
>Star Trek??? Can someone post the date of the issues containing
>these listings???
I can't help with that, but I have a version from 27-Jul-73
by Aron K Insinga running in rsts/e Basic.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb .at. dial .dot. pipex .dot. com
(Remove any digits from the addresses when mailing me.)
The future was never like this!
Glen Herrmannsfeldt
"Charles Richmond" <rich...@ev1.net> wrote in message
news:3ED65E1C...@ev1.net...
> I am aware that _BASIC Computer Games_, edited by David Ahl,
> contains a Star Trek game in BASIC. There is even a version in
> _101 BASIC Computer Games_, edited again by Dave Ahl, although
> this version is under the deceptive title of "SPACWR".
>
> In the magazines BYTE, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobb's, and
> Interface Age, were there ever any versions of the BASIC game
> Star Trek??? Can someone post the date of the issues containing
> these listings???
There were a number of pretty simple ones. One that I am interested in
finding is called TREK73. It seems to exist in a C translation, but I
haven't yet found the original, BASIC, version. (I haven't looked all that
hard, though.)
Maybe someone who reads this will know about a copy.
-- glen
Erik Klein
> contains a Star Trek game in BASIC. There is even a version in
> _101 BASIC Computer Games_, edited again by Dave Ahl, although
> this version is under the deceptive title of "SPACWR".
>
> In the magazines BYTE, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobb's, and
> Interface Age, were there ever any versions of the BASIC game
> Star Trek??? Can someone post the date of the issues containing
> these listings???
Unfortunately all of my magazines are in storage for a few months but I
don't recall any with Trek listings.
Hopefully I'll remember when I retrieve them.
Erik Klein
www.vintage-computer.com
www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum
The Vintage Computer Forum
Douglas H. Quebbeman
> I am aware that _BASIC Computer Games_, edited by David Ahl,
> contains a Star Trek game in BASIC. There is even a version in
> _101 BASIC Computer Games_, edited again by Dave Ahl, although
> this version is under the deceptive title of "SPACWR".
>
> In the magazines BYTE, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobb's, and
> Interface Age, were there ever any versions of the BASIC game
> Star Trek??? Can someone post the date of the issues containing
> these listings???
Yes, an issue of Interface Age (post-SCCS days) carried the listing
of the U Texas version of Super Start Trek written in FTN (the CDC
FORTRAN compiler, er, the better one).
I can't quote chapter and verse, and while the issues on the
top of the stack appear to be OK, the bottom 12 inches of
the stack has been welded into a monolith by mold...
However, that particular source code is available on the net...
The original Star Trek in BASIC was written by Mike Mayfield
of Centerline Engineering. A copy of that exists on the net
verbatim save for the prefix of fewer than 10 lines of comments
needed to make it part of the HP BASIC library... and I also
have a translation into CDC BASIC obtained directly from the
guy that translated it...
-dq
--
-Douglas Hurst Quebbeman (do...@iglou.com) [Call me "Doug"]
To reply, place PUNCHTHRU in square brackets in SUBJECT line
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away." -Tom Waits
William Hamblen
wrote:
>In the magazines BYTE, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobb's, and
>Interface Age, were there ever any versions of the BASIC game
>Star Trek??? Can someone post the date of the issues containing
>these listings???
Creative Computing had a BASIC listing for "Super Star Trek" reprinted
in "The Best of Creative Computing." I don't know what issue the
listing was in originally.
Craig S
Draxen
> contains a Star Trek game in BASIC. There is even a version in
> _101 BASIC Computer Games_, edited again by Dave Ahl, although
> this version is under the deceptive title of "SPACWR".
>
> In the magazines BYTE, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobb's, and
> Interface Age, were there ever any versions of the BASIC game
> Star Trek??? Can someone post the date of the issues containing
> these listings???
Back in the early 80s when the 8-bit micro boom was at it's height in the UK
there were a few mags over here that specialised in printing listings for
the readers. This is long before the days of cover mounted floppies or even
cassette tapes.
The language of choice was BASIC, almost all the home machines ran it, and
Star Trek was one of the most popular games. With the range of machines we
had then there were about 6 or so mags supporting them for a number of
years, you could count on a Star Trek listing popping up in at least one of
them every three or four months.
I don't know if the same sort of thing was published in other countries, the
UK went 'puter crazy about 20 years ago.
Two titles I remember were Your Computer and Computer & Video Games, the
latter I think is still going but hasn't printed listings for over a decade
AFAIK.
Glen Herrmannsfeldt
"Draxen" <ja...@SPAMjudgement.TRAPno-ip.com> wrote in message
news:3ed87fca$0$7752$fa0f...@lovejoy.zen.co.uk...
(snip)
> Back in the early 80s when the 8-bit micro boom was at it's height in the
UK
> there were a few mags over here that specialised in printing listings for
> the readers. This is long before the days of cover mounted floppies or
even
> cassette tapes.
This reminds me, for some reason, in about 1979 I had a subscription to
Interface Age, though I didn't have a computer yet. This was the days
before affordable floppy drives, when cassette tape was about all there was.
How to publish programs in a magazine, convenient for the user? They put in
one of those floppy 33 1/3 RPM records. The same as would be recorded on
the cassette tape. I think they did a few of those. I never got to use
one, though.
> The language of choice was BASIC, almost all the home machines ran it, and
> Star Trek was one of the most popular games. With the range of machines we
> had then there were about 6 or so mags supporting them for a number of
> years, you could count on a Star Trek listing popping up in at least one
of
> them every three or four months.
-- glen
Pete Turnbull
> http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek/ has a few different
> versions.
...one of which is the one from Creative Computing. I have eight others
on that page, including Mike Mayfield's original, plus some in languages
other than BASIC. If anyone has any other vintage versions in text form
that might be readable/useful/interesting, email me and I'll consider
putting them up there.
The bottom of the page also has some links to other sites, though one of
them seems to have gone away (the site's accessible but the directory
appears empty).
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Charles Richmond
Someday I will have the wherewithall to compile the COBOL version...
So as someone posted here, the BASIC version of TREK73 seems *not*
to be available anywhere. The 'C' version is around, but *not* the
original BASIC version. Do you know where someone can get the BASIC
version of TREK73???
Glen Herrmannsfeldt
> So as someone posted here, the BASIC version of TREK73 seems *not*
> to be available anywhere. The 'C' version is around, but *not* the
> original BASIC version. Do you know where someone can get the BASIC
> version of TREK73???
I keep asking. I posted again in comp.sources.wanted. Someday someone will
come up with a copy. Maybe a printed version that needs to be typed in.
-- glen
David Wade
"Pete Turnbull" <pn...@york.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:bbffts$150$1...@pump1.york.ac.uk...
> Craig S <c...@elvis.com> wrote:
> > http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek/ has a few different
> > versions.
There is also a "compiled" version on
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/H390-VM/files/VM%20Games/
for VM/CMS on IBM Mainframe. Works fine on the hercules emulator. Perhaps
you would like to add a link.
Pete Turnbull
Is this the version in which the enemy fights back a bit more
enthusiastically (and might actually win)?
http://ch309c.chem.lsu.edu/~kmurray/other/trek73/
The owner of that page claims to have some hard copies of the BASIC
version.
John Laird
on Cybers.
--
John Laird, CCNA
Director, Network & Mainframe Services Box T-0220, Tarleton Station
Tarleton State University Stephenville, TX 76402
Internet - JLA...@TARLETON.EDU (254)968-9009 fax (254)968-9393
A member of the Texas A&M University System since 1917
"Charles Richmond" <rich...@ev1.net> wrote in message
news:3EDBA05F...@ev1.net...
Charles Richmond
>
> I have the BASIC source for a 5 April 73 version (U of Texas) that ran under NOS
> on Cybers.
>
have the paper source listing... Perhaps you could provide xerox
copies for interested parties???
Trog Woolley
> on Cybers.
I have the version from South Australian Institute of Technology
which is of similar vintage and ran on the same machine.
This was souped up from the original by various students, including me.
It's only on 15x11, so theres a lot of typing to do.
--
Trog Woolley | trog at trog hyphen oz dot demon dot co dot uk
(A Croweater back residing in Pommie Land with Linux)
Isis Astarte Diana Hecate Demeter Kali Inanna
Pete Turnbull
> John Laird wrote:
>>
>> I have the BASIC source for a 5 April 73 version (U of Texas) that ran under NOS
>> on Cybers.
>>
> Do you have any way to post it on the 'net??? Or maybe you only
> have the paper source listing... Perhaps you could provide xerox
> copies for interested parties???
In response to what I posted a few days ago, a few people have contacted
me with various source files (including several for Cyber/CDC), and the
owner of the webpage I mentioned has offered me hardcopy of TREK73. As
soon as I've got time to sort through the files, I'll post some of them
on my Star Trek page.
John Laird
to post it.
--
John Laird, CCNA
Director, Network & Mainframe Services Box T-0220, Tarleton Station
Tarleton State University Stephenville, TX 76402
Internet - JLA...@TARLETON.EDU (254)968-9009 fax (254)968-9393
A member of the Texas A&M University System since 1917
"Charles Richmond" <rich...@ev1.net> wrote in message
news:3EDE80DF...@ev1.net...
K. Murray
As per our e-mail discourse, the TREK is in the mail in the form of a
hard copy. It's readable, but probably not good enough for OCR (sample
scan at http://ch309c.chem.lsu.edu/~kmurray/other/trek73/TREK73_bas.jpg)
The code is comprised of TREK73 (main routine), TREK0 (enemy
strategy), TREK1 (commands 1-10), TREK2 (commands 11-20), TREK3
(commands 21-30), and TREK4 (movement, firing, etc.). About 40 pages
total - maybe 2000+ lines of code. It appears to be the original
William Char version and is dated November 26, 1973 and not the
Lawrence Hall of Science version.
Enjoy!
-----
Kermit Murray
http://ch335c.chem.lsu.edu/
Douglas H. Quebbeman
> "Charles Richmond" <rich...@ev1.net> wrote in message
> news:3EDE80DF...@ev1.net...
>> John Laird wrote:
>>>
>>> I have the BASIC source for a 5 April 73 version (U of Texas) that
>>> ran under NOS on Cybers.
>>>
>> Do you have any way to post it on the 'net??? Or maybe you only
>> have the paper source listing... Perhaps you could provide xerox
>> copies for interested parties???
>
> is going to post it.
Yes, you can grab it from
http://members.iglou.com/dougq/cdc/UT-Trek.basic
This version was the direct antecedent of most of the
versions found floating around Indiana University in
the mid-70s.
Glen Herrmannsfeldt
"Douglas H. Quebbeman" <do...@iglou.com> wrote in message
news:3ee341ba$1...@news.iglou.com...
>
> Yes, you can grab it from
>
> http://members.iglou.com/dougq/cdc/UT-Trek.basic
>
> This version was the direct antecedent of most of the
> versions found floating around Indiana University in
> the mid-70s.
It would look much nicer as TEXT/PLAIN instead of TEXT/HTML, but otherwise
it should save fine.
-- glen
Douglas H. Quebbeman
<sigh>
I really need to take the time to craft a real home page.
What I have is a "Watch This Space" page; so, I just end
up dumping things in the web storage area, then post links,
instead of having an index page that specifies the datatype.
I guess TEXT/HTML is what you get if you don't use an index
page or such to explicitly make it the datatype it needs to
be... sorry about that!
-dq
Gene Wirchenko
>John Laird wrote:
>> "Charles Richmond" <rich...@ev1.net> wrote in message
>> news:3EDE80DF...@ev1.net...
>>> John Laird wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I have the BASIC source for a 5 April 73 version (U of Texas) that
>>>> ran under NOS on Cybers.
>>>>
>>> Do you have any way to post it on the 'net??? Or maybe you only
>>> have the paper source listing... Perhaps you could provide xerox
>>> copies for interested parties???
>>
>> I have sent Doug and Charles a copy of the source, and I believe Doug
>> is going to post it.
>
>Yes, you can grab it from
>
> http://members.iglou.com/dougq/cdc/UT-Trek.basic
>
>This version was the direct antecedent of most of the
>versions found floating around Indiana University in
>the mid-70s.
It does not work. Missing line 790 and apparently a few more
around there.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Glen Herrmannsfeldt
"Gene Wirchenko" <ge...@mail.ocis.net> wrote in message
news:3ee40065...@news.ocis.net...
(snip)
> It does not work. Missing line 790 and apparently a few more
> around there.
I haven't tried running it, but mine has line 790.
Douglas H. Quebbeman
> "Douglas H. Quebbeman" <do...@iglou.com> wrote:
>
>> John Laird wrote:
>>> "Charles Richmond" <rich...@ev1.net> wrote in message
>>> news:3EDE80DF...@ev1.net...
>>>> John Laird wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I have the BASIC source for a 5 April 73 version (U of Texas) that
>>>>> ran under NOS on Cybers.
>>>>>
>>>> Do you have any way to post it on the 'net??? Or maybe you only
>>>> have the paper source listing... Perhaps you could provide xerox
>>>> copies for interested parties???
>>>
>>> I have sent Doug and Charles a copy of the source, and I believe
>>> Doug is going to post it.
>>
>> Yes, you can grab it from
>>
>> http://members.iglou.com/dougq/cdc/UT-Trek.basic
>>
>> This version was the direct antecedent of most of the
>> versions found floating around Indiana University in
>> the mid-70s.
>
> It does not work. Missing line 790 and apparently a few more
> around there.
Your browser munged it because it doesn't have a MIME type
named '.basic'...
Try the ZIPped version at
http://members.iglou.com/dougq/cdc/UT-Trek.zip
Regards,
-dq
Cliff Sojourner
"K. Murray" <kmu...@ch335c.chem.lsu.edu> wrote in message
news:34920bfb.03060...@posting.google.com...
...
> As per our e-mail discourse, the TREK is in the mail in the form of a
> hard copy. It's readable, but probably not good enough for OCR (sample
> scan at http://ch309c.chem.lsu.edu/~kmurray/other/trek73/TREK73_bas.jpg)
>
> The code is comprised of TREK73 (main routine), TREK0 (enemy
> strategy), TREK1 (commands 1-10), TREK2 (commands 11-20), TREK3
> (commands 21-30), and TREK4 (movement, firing, etc.). About 40 pages
> total - maybe 2000+ lines of code. It appears to be the original
> William Char version and is dated November 26, 1973 and not the
> Lawrence Hall of Science version.
neat stuff on the TREK73 page, thanks for the link!!
is anyone else around here nostalgic for the LHS $TREK?
... somewhere in the garage I have a listing of $TREK we did on the
Northstar Horizon, using the SOL-20 BASIC.
--
these are the good old days
Cliff Sojourner c...@employees.org
Pete Turnbull
>>>> I have the BASIC source for a 5 April 73 version (U of Texas) that
>>>> ran under NOS on Cybers.
[...]
>> I have sent Doug and Charles a copy of the source, and I believe Doug
>> is going to post it.
> Yes, you can grab it from
> http://members.iglou.com/dougq/cdc/UT-Trek.basic
> This version was the direct antecedent of most of the
> versions found floating around Indiana University in
> the mid-70s.
I've finally updated my Star Trek page at
http:// www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek
and included that version, and a few others (some also from Doug). John,
if you or Doug object to my borrowing that, please let me know :-) A
couple more will follow in due course, hopefully including an early BASIC
version of TREK73...
Charles Richmond
listings show the authors to be Grady Hicks and Jim Korp.
But the TREK73 page on the internet list the authors as
William K. Char, Perry Lee, and Dan Gee. I thought that
the TREK73 that was at the Laurence Hall of Science (LHS)
was a deriviative of the Kicks and Korp program. No???
Pete Turnbull
> I noticed a discrepancy in the TREK73 BASIC listing... The
> listings show the authors to be Grady Hicks and Jim Korp.
> But the TREK73 page on the internet list the authors as
> William K. Char, Perry Lee, and Dan Gee. I thought that
> the TREK73 that was at the Laurence Hall of Science (LHS)
> was a deriviative of the Kicks and Korp program. No???
I don't know, but these pages suggest otherwise:
http://lists.firedrake.org/gzg/199611/msg00242.html
http://docs.FreeBSD.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=602712+0+/usr/local/www/db/text/1999/freebsd-current/19991024.freebsd-current
K. Murray
The LHS TREK manual credits Char, Lee, and Gee for TREK73 and Roderick
Perkins for porting it to LHS:
http://ch309c.chem.lsu.edu/~kmurray/other/trek73/TREK73_Man_ii.jpg
--
Kermit Murray
http://ch309c.chem.lsu.edu/~kmurray/
Charles Richmond
All the listings in BASIC that I got from people on this thread...
credit these two as the authors.
John R. Strohm
> "K. Murray" wrote:
> >
> > Pete Turnbull <pn...@york.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:<bcn6k8$a54$1...@pump1.york.ac.uk>...
> > > Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
> > > > I noticed a discrepancy in the TREK73 BASIC listing... The
> > > > listings show the authors to be Grady Hicks and Jim Korp.
> > > > But the TREK73 page on the internet list the authors as
> > > > William K. Char, Perry Lee, and Dan Gee. I thought that
> > > > the TREK73 that was at the Laurence Hall of Science (LHS)
> > > > was a deriviative of the Kicks and Korp program. No???
> > >
> > > I don't know, but these pages suggest otherwise:
> > >
> > > http://lists.firedrake.org/gzg/199611/msg00242.html
> > >
http://docs.FreeBSD.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=602712+0+/usr/local/www/db/text
/1999/freebsd-current/19991024.freebsd-current
> >
> > The LHS TREK manual credits Char, Lee, and Gee for TREK73 and Roderick
> > Perkins for porting it to LHS:
> >
> > http://ch309c.chem.lsu.edu/~kmurray/other/trek73/TREK73_Man_ii.jpg
> >
> So how did the guys Grady Hicks and Jim Korp get into the picture???
> All the listings in BASIC that I got from people on this thread...
> credit these two as the authors.
Apparently an independent development.
Hicks wrote a low-grade SPCWAR (Star Trek) game, somewhere else. Korp, at
UT Austin, saw it and did a heavy rewrite/upgrade/extend on it. LOTS of
people at UT Austin played that game, and lots of people around Austin as
well.
At one time, I had a listing of it, that took over an hour to print on an
ASR-33 teletype.
Charles Richmond
>
> "Charles Richmond" <rich...@ev1.net> wrote in message
> news:3EF29CD4...@ev1.net...
> > >
> > >
> >
> > So how did the guys Grady Hicks and Jim Korp get into the picture???
> > All the listings in BASIC that I got from people on this thread...
> > credit these two as the authors.
>
> Apparently an independent development.
>
> Hicks wrote a low-grade SPCWAR (Star Trek) game, somewhere else. Korp, at
> UT Austin, saw it and did a heavy rewrite/upgrade/extend on it. LOTS of
> people at UT Austin played that game, and lots of people around Austin as
> well.
>
It is relatively easy to find the C port of TREK73...but the original
BASIC version seems to have disappeared. Perhaps someone carried one
away from the Lawrence Hall of Science...
>
> At one time, I had a listing of it, that took over an hour to print on an
> ASR-33 teletype.
>
Cliff Sojourner
...
> So this means that I am *still* searching for a BASIC version of TREK73.
> It is relatively easy to find the C port of TREK73...but the original
> BASIC version seems to have disappeared. Perhaps someone carried one
> away from the Lawrence Hall of Science...
I have a listing of a SOL-20 BASIC version, we played it on the Northstar
Horizon. man that was heaven.
but, nothing compares to playing it on the ASR-33, clanking and pounding,
hot grease flying, chattering out
<<ENTERPRISE FRNG PHASERS>>
HIT 45 ON SHLURG
KIRK: CODE [1-27]
if you get really desperate for source code let me know, I can spend a few
days excavating the listing. beware though, the BASIC on the Horizon wasn't
exactly like TimeShare Basic on the Decision system. for one, our Horizon
had 48k RAM so didn't need 7 separate programs and COM statements. also,
the multiple statements per line somewhat rearranged the program.
that said, in the last few weeks I have been having a _really_ great time
playing the DOS version of TREK73, found at
http://ch309c.chem.lsu.edu/~kmurray/other/trek73/
I think that version is improved over the original in a few ways ...