> In 1977, while I was in high school, we were using a time shared
> multi-user system. Our school commission was teaching computer science
> with this machine. (My first introduction to HP.)
> On this system there was a game called "Star Trek". A basic program
> that was Cool in its time. As years passed I forgot all about this
> stuff. (Probably blocked it out!! :) )
> Now, 20 years later, I was wondering if this software ever survived
> somewhere. Could it be ported over to the DOS Basic compiler?

OK, I'll be nostalgic...

My first "introduction" to computers was at a Georgia Governor's Honors
Program summer seminar my Junior year of high school.  My passion of the
moment was chemistry, my original entry was for quantitative analysis of
trace metals/oxygen content in freshwater tributaries.  Some of the
tests involved exponential/integral functions (spectrophotometer values
versus a reference standard) and my advisor suggested that I use "the
computer" instead of my calculator to derive my results from my
observations.  My reaction was "what computer", and I was directed to
the Math department's "lab" where they had around a dozen CRT terminals
and one hardcopy TeleType to Georgia Tech's Univac 1170.

I peered into the room, and spotted some math geek playing "Star Trek".
The rest is history.

Compressing the story, I obtained an account and exposure to
"Interactive Basic".  One of the library programs was "startrek" which
was one of the early implementations of the game (1975).  I stole a
listing from the Teletype one Sunday.  The following fall, I was
suffering from computer withdrawal (no PCs in 1975), and my high school
guidance counselor led me to John True (former Interex Chair) and UTC,
and their pending acquisition of an HP2000 Access system.

The "startrek" program was dutifully copied into the 2000 :-) with minor
language differences accounted for.

Years pass, much fun had at the hands of the game.  But it wasn't that
fun anymore.  It needed some tweaks.  I went to work, solo at first,
with help at the latter from Tim Jenkins (at one of the UC campuses now
as a director) and somebody else I don't recall.

I recall when you took I hit in the original game, you could do "Damage
control" and one of the things that could be hit was the computer.
Well, that pretty much took things out of hand.  What if the computer
was split into subsystems, each responsible for some function of the
ship?  Then we could "automate" some of the geeky parts of the game
(computing course and warp factor) with a risk of having that computer
damaged...

The phasers were effective, and "automagically" fired on your selected
target, penalized only by your distance from the target.  Gee, if they
can fire themselves, why do we have to do photon torpedo paths?  Kaboom,
we have self-targeting torpedoes, naturally at a risk of control.

Warping around with all this "warp factor" and "course" setting were
pretty lame; on the show Kirk always said where to go, and they went.
So kaboom, auto-navigation to any given quadrant/sector (for possible
penalty for being lazy).  As Picard would say, "Make it so!".

You get surrounded by the accursed Klingons.  Phasers hit everyone of
them simultaneously, but torpedoes only fired one at a time.  Kaboom,
invent the "autofire" feature (also at a penalty).

But we really need Romulans.  They could cloak, if their internal energy
was above a certain level.  Cool... invisible attackers; automatic
functions don't work anymore, you have to guess.  Then there is the
dispute of whether Klingons, Romulans, or both can cloak.  By that time
I didn't care, I already had cloaking Romulans :-)

Of course, that got old, so we invent a "laser scan" (hey, this was
before 'The Next Generation' and graviton waves and neat stuff, it was
all I could think of at the time) that discovers Romulans under cloak.

Anyway... this beast continued to grow, and eventually became SPACEWAR
(or on the 2000, XPACEW).  I converted the 2000 source to 3000 Basic
and compiled it (no trivial task, nearly 30 CHAIN'ed programs) into
classic object code.  But then came the dreaded PCAL 0 bug with the
Basic compiler, and I had since lost the source.  I think it may be on
a tape (800bpi 9-track variety) at UTC somewhere, but otherwise, unless
there is a neat fix for the PCAL 0 compiled basic bug, it's history.

Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>  Waaayyyy too trekked out these days