<para>Space is vast, and it takes precious time to move from one place to
another. In comparison, other things happen so quickly that we
-assume the take no time at all. Two ways that time can pass are when
+assume they take no time at all. Two ways that time can pass are when
you move, or when you issue a command to sit still and rest for a
period of time. You will sometimes want to do the latter, since the
various devices aboard your starship may be damaged and require time
what they would be if the shields were completely up or completely
down. </para>
-<para>You may not fire phasers through your shields. However you may use
-the <quote>high-speed shield control</quote> to lower shields, fire phasers, and
-raise the shields again before the Klingons can react. Since rapid
-lowering and raising of the shields requires more energy than normal
-speed operation, it costs you 200 units of energy to activate this
-control. It is automatically activated when you fire phasers while
-shields are up. You may fire photon torpedoes, but they may be
-deflected considerably from their intended course as they pass
+<para>You may not fire phasers through your shields. However you may
+use the <quote>high-speed shield control</quote> to lower shields,
+fire phasers, and raise the shields again before the Klingons can
+react. Since rapid lowering and raising of the shields requires more
+energy than normal speed operation, it costs you 200 units of energy
+to activate this control. It is automatically activated when you fire
+phasers while shields are up. You may fire photon torpedoes, but they
+may be deflected considerably from their intended course as they pass
through the shields (depending on shield strength).</para>
<para>You may transfer energy beteen the ship's energy (given as
-<quote>Energy</quote> in the status) and the shields. Thee word
+<quote>Energy</quote> in the status) and the shields. The word
<quote>TRANSFER</quote> may be abbreviated <quote>T</quote>. The
ammount of energy to transfer is the number of units of energy you
wish to take from the ship's energy and put into the shields. If you
</literallayout>
<para>[Originally, this command was called <quote>HELP</quote>, but
-these days it might be misinterpreted as built-in
+these days that might be misconstrued as an attempt to browae built-in
documentation! In some later versions it was CALL.]</para>
-<para>When you get into serious trouble, you may call starbase for
+<para>When you get into serious trouble, you may call a starbase for
help. Starbases have a device called a <quote>long-range transporter
beam</quote> which they can use to teleport you to base. This works
by dematerializing your starship at its current position and
<quote>Super-Commander</quote> is more powerful than an ordinary
commander, he can destroy a base more quickly.</para>
-<para>The <quote>Super-Commander</quote> travels around the galaxy at a speed of about
-warp 6 or 7. His movement is strictly time based; the more time
-passes, the further he can go.</para>
+<para>The <quote>Super-Commander</quote> travels around the galaxy at
+a speed of about warp 6 or 7. His movement is strictly time based;
+the more time passes, the further he can go.</para>
<para>Scattered through the galaxy are certain zones of control,
collectively designated the <quote>Romulan Neutral Zone</quote>. Any
</chapter>
<chapter><title>Game History and Modifications</title>
+<sect1><title>Origins</title>
+
+<para>The original Star Trek seems to have been written by Mike
+Mayfield at the beginning of the 1970s. His first version was in
+BASIC for a Sigma 7 in 1971; on 1972 he rewrote it in Hewlett
+Packard BASIC.</para>
+
+<para>While some people claim to have recollections of playing Trek
+games in the late 1960s, the earlier ones seem actually to have been
+variants of
+<ulink url='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!'>
+SPACEWAR</ulink>, the earlier space-combat game on the
+PDP-1. Mayfield <ulink
+url='http://www3.sympatico.ca/maury/games/space/star_trek.html'>wrote
+in 2000</ulink> that he invented the Trek-style galactic grid, and the
+evidence seems to back that up.</para>
+
+<para>Many different versions radiated from Mayfield's original; most
+are descended from a version misleadingly called SPACEWR that David
+Ahl published in <citetitle>101 BASIC Computer Games</citetitle>,
+1973. This was a port of Mayfield's version obtained from the HP
+Contributed Programs library.</para>
+
+<para>Our "Super Star Trek" came through a Taurus BASIC program by
+Grady Hicks dated 5 April 1973. This does not appear to have been
+derived from Ahl's SPACEWR, at least not directly. The header says
+"GENERAL IDEA STOLEN FROM PENN. U.", and the game has several features
+not present in SPACEWR: notably, the Death Ray, ramming, and the
+Klingon summons to surrender.</para>
+
+<para>Dave Matuszek, Paul Reynolds et. al. at UT Austin translated the
+Hicks port into FORTRAN and considerably enhanced it. The name "Super
+Star Trek" and many design features (including command abbreviations
+rather than command numbers) were probably picked up from a second
+BASIC version published by David Ahl in his 1978 sequel
+<citetitle>BASIC Computer Games</citetitle>.</para>
+
+<para>One signature trait of FORTRAN SST and its descendants is that
+the sectors are 10x10 (rather than the 8x8 in Mike Mayfield's 1972
+original and its BASIC descendants) Also, you set courses and firing
+directions with rectangular rather than polar coordinates. FORTRAN SST
+also preserves the original numbered quadrants rather than the
+astronomically-named quadrants introduced in David Ahl's 1978 BASIC
+version and descendants.</para>
+
+<para>Eric Allman's BSD Trek game is one of these, also descended from
+FORTRAN SST via translation to C. However, the mainline SST (now
+SST2K) has had a lot more stuff folded into it over the years —
+deep space probes, dilithium mining, the Tholian Web, and so
+forth.</para>
+</sect1>
+
<sect1><title>Tom Almy's story</title>
<para>Back in (about) 1977 I got a copy of this Super Star Trek game for
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
+<para>My changes got merged into SST2K in 2005, and I wortk on it now.</para>
+
</sect1>
<sect1><title>Eric Raymond's story</title>
downloaded his code and Dave verified that that it was a direct
descendent of UT Super Star Trek — even though it had been translated
to C, he was able to recognize names and techniques from the FORTRAN
-version.</para>
-
-<para>Thus, this game is a cousin of Eric Allman's BSD Trek game, which is
-also derived from UT Super Star Trek. However, this one has had a lot
-more stuff folded into it over the years — deep space probes,
-dilithium mining, the Tholian Web, and so forth.</para>
-
-<para>One signature trait of this group of variants is that the sectors are
-10x10 rather than the 8x8 in Mike Mayfield's 1972 original and its
-BASIC descendants) Also, you set courses and firing directions with
-rectangular rather than polar coordinates. It also preserves the
-original numbered quadrants rather than the astronomically-named
-quadrants introduced into many BASIC versions.</para>
+version he co-wrote.</para>
<para>This game is now an open-source project; see the <ulink
url='http://developer.berlios.de/projects/sst/'>project
<listitem><para>
At Dave's prompting, restored the Space Thingy's original elusive behavior.
</para></listitem>
+<listitem><para>
+Clean separation of game engine from the UI code, improving Stas
+Sergeev's excellent work on the curses interface.
+</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Here are some good pages on the history of Star Trek games:</para>
projects / super-star-trek.git / commitdiff