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Star Trek 1971 Text Game (2008)

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Re: Star Trek 1971 Text Game (2008)

#13
If you like this kind of thing, try to find copies of books by Dave Ahl - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC_Computer_Games

I like this kind of thing and I have both books. A family friend CP/M system was by first gaming experience and I played all of them. The Star Trek here exists in a sort of copyright limbo, CBS obviously didn't license it but it was too popular to squash. I remember seeing ports of this to Amiga, Palm Pilot and Windows CE over the years.

Colossal Cave is a contemporary - it wasn't distributed as source (to my recollection... compiled OBASIC.COM IIRC?) so it isn't in the books but it was my favourite.

Re: Star Trek 1971 Text Game (2008)

#15
Good ol' trek was the very first video game I played on the family computer! This was a IMS 5000SX running TurboDOS 1.2, some time in 1983 I think. (Why my father saw fit to buy this thing instead of an Apple II is a question for another day. The best the IMS could do was drive a text-only WYSE-50 terminal at maybe 19200 baud.) Later on, my cousin would dial me into his 3B2 (using Tymnet or Telenet!) so I could play a full-screen variant called "vtrek". I found the vtrek sources on an FTP archive several years ago, but it requires BSD 4.3-style termios, and I just don't have it in me to port it to curses or something more modern.

Re: Star Trek 1971 Text Game (2008)

#16

This is the first computer game I ever played. My mom was a secretary at a local university, and there was a computer lab across the hall from her office. I'd go there after school to wait for a ride home, and someone logged me in and set me on my way. This was all on paper-feed terminals and I'd take the stack of printout homes and read through each game over and over. This is when I fell in love with computers. In…

This was also the first computer game I ever played! It was on an HP 2000 computer running timeshared BASIC from a clunky teletype, in the early 1970s. The best part was that you could just type "LIST" and it would print out all the BASIC code - all the games on that machine were open source!

If the Klingons beat you, you'd get this disheartening message, which I remember to this day: "The Enterprise has been destroyed. The Federation will be conquered. You are dead."

I also remember playing a car racing game on the same machine, and also a game about landing a spaceship on the moon (which, a few years later, I created a real-time version of on a 6800 microprocessor in machine language). But the Star Trek game was definitely the best one.

Re: Star Trek 1971 Text Game (2008)

#17

This is the first computer game I ever played. My mom was a secretary at a local university, and there was a computer lab across the hall from her office. I'd go there after school to wait for a ride home, and someone logged me in and set me on my way. This was all on paper-feed terminals and I'd take the stack of printout homes and read through each game over and over. This is when I fell in love with computers. In…

This was also the first computer game I ever played! It was on an HP 2000 computer running timeshared BASIC from a clunky teletype, in the early 1970s. The best part was that you could just type "LIST" and it would print out all the BASIC code - all the games on that machine were open source! If the Klingons beat you, you'd get this disheartening message, which I remember to this day: "The Enterprise has been destroy…

Wow, I also have fond memories of playing games on an HP 2000 running timeshared BASIC, except it was the mid 80s for me. A bit of Star Trek, but a lot of Angband, Advent, an ASCII first person rendered Dungeon crawl, and a ton of time spent on NOTES; a great message board ported from the Plato system.

I would skip school and hang out in the Terminal Room at the local college, playing games and writing programs. I never did finish High School, but I learned what I wanted to do when I grew up. Man I loved that machine.

Re: Star Trek 1971 Text Game (2008)

#18

If you like this kind of thing, try to find copies of books by Dave Ahl - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC_Computer_Games I like this kind of thing and I have both books. A family friend CP/M system was by first gaming experience and I played all of them. The Star Trek here exists in a sort of copyright limbo, CBS obviously didn't license it but it was too popular to squash. I remember seeing ports of this to A…

I've actually been re-reading some of the "best of creative computing" books published by ahl. It is really sad instinct to see how the future was largely predicted.

As far as colloidal caves, you should check out The "get lamp" documentary.

http://www.getlamp.com

Re: Star Trek 1971 Text Game (2008)

#19

Looking at this source code brings back memories. Star Trek was ported everywhere there was a BASIC. When I was 16, in 1981, our school got it's first computer, a Commodore Pet. 4K of RAM! Basic! Hi-tech graphics on the keys! We only had one, it was in the library, and you had to 1) sign up for it, and 2) get a pass to leave study hall to come to the library. My math teacher was an easy touch, so I scored a pass ever…

It comes up from time to time, but I was thrilled when I found this: telnet telehack.com

Re: Star Trek 1971 Text Game (2008)

#20

If you like this kind of thing, try to find copies of books by Dave Ahl - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC_Computer_Games I like this kind of thing and I have both books. A family friend CP/M system was by first gaming experience and I played all of them. The Star Trek here exists in a sort of copyright limbo, CBS obviously didn't license it but it was too popular to squash. I remember seeing ports of this to A…

I've actually been re-reading some of the "best of creative computing" books published by ahl. It is really sad instinct to see how the future was largely predicted. As far as colloidal caves, you should check out The "get lamp" documentary. http://www.getlamp.com

I was a backer on that one, it's a great documentary.
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