Star Trek Re: Classic BASIC Games

From: Anthony Wood <ajw_at_best.com>
Date: Sat Jul 13 19:08:00 2002

I tried running the MDS version of Super Star Trek (from your link).
Unfortunately, it uses the DEF function, which is not currently supported in
my interpreter (On the TRS-80, which is the version of BASIC I used for the
spec, DEF is a "DISK BASIC" function, not in the standard MS BASIC Level 2.
But, I've added several DISK BASIC statements, and DEF is the next on my
list to add, one of these days.

The version of Super Star Trek I included in my collection is from Creative
Computing, and doesn't use the DEF statement.

There is also a great version of Star Trek that uses some TRS-80 graphics
that will work, on trs-80.com in the model I software section.

Here is a history of Super Star Trek as noted by David Ahl (editor of
Creative Computing):

----
Many versions if Star Trek have been kicking around various college campuses
since the late sixties. I recall playing one at Carnegie-Mellon UNiv. in
1967 or 1968, and a very different one at Berkeley. However, these were a
far cry fron the one written by Mike Mayfield of Centerline Engineering
and/or Custom Data. This was written for an HP2000C and completed in October
1972. It became the "standard" Star Trek in February 1973 when it was put in
the HP contributed program library and onto a number of HP Data Center
machines.
In the summer of 1973, I converted the HP version to BASIC-PLUS for DEC's
RSTS-11 compiler and added a few bits and pieces while I was at it. Mary
Cole at DEC contributed enormously to this task too. Later that year I
published it under the name SPACWAR (Space War - in retrospect, an incorrect
name) in my book 101 Basic Computer Games. It is difficult today to find an
interactive computer installation that does not have one of these versions
of Star Trek available.
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- Anthony
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Play classic basic games: http://www.awsoftware.org

Received on Sat Jul 13 2002 - 19:08:00 BST