Tom Almy story: Back in (about) 1977 I got a copy of this Super Star Trek game for the CDC 6600 mainframe computer. Someone had converted it to PDP-11 Fortran but couldn't get it to run because of its size. I modified the program to use overlays and managed to shoehorn it in on the 56k byte machine. I liked the game so much I put some time into fixing bugs, mainly what could be called continuity errors and loopholes in the game's logic. We even played a couple tournaments. In 1979, I lost access to that PDP-11. I did save the source code listing. In 1995, missing that old friend, I started converting the program into portable ANSI C. It's been slow, tedious work that took over a year to accomplish. In early 1997, I got the bright idea to look for references to "Super Star Trek" on the World Wide Web. There weren't many hits, but there was one that came up with 1979 Fortran sources! This version had a few additional features that mine didn't have, however mine had some feature it didn't have. So I merged its features that I liked. I also took a peek at the DECUS version (a port, less sources, to the PDP-10), and some other variations. Modifications I made: Compared to original version, I've changed the "help" command to "call" and the "terminate" command to "quit" to better match user expectations. The DECUS version apparently made those changes as well as changing "freeze" to "save". However I like "freeze". I added EMEXIT from the 1979 version. That later version also mentions srscan and lrscan working when docked (using the starbase's scanners), so I made some changes here to do this (and indicating that fact to the player), and then realized the base would have a subspace radio as well -- doing a Chart when docked updates the star chart, and all radio reports will be heard. The Dock command will also give a report if a base is under attack. It also had some added logic to spread the initial positioning of bases. That made sense to add because most people abort games with bad base placement. The experimental deathray originally had only a 5% chance of success, but could be used repeatedly. I guess after a couple years of use, it was less "experimental" because the 1979 version had a 70% success rate. However it was prone to breaking after use. I upgraded the deathray, but kept the original set of failure modes (great humor!). I put in the Tholian Web code from the 1979 version. I added code so that Romulans and regular Klingons could move in advanced games. I re-enabled the code which allows enemy ships to ram the Enterprise; it had never worked right. The 1979 version seems to have it all fixed up, but I'm still not overly happy with the algorithm. The DECUS version had a Deep Space Probe. Looked like a good idea so I implimented it based on its description. Stas Sergeev story: Found Tom Almy's C sources - yeah! Hmm, not too playable - I've got used to that nice text-based GUI I've seen on an IBM S/370 port, and the command-line control gets me quite annoyed. But that's a good starting point for some improvements - the sources are finally here! I was about to start writing an S/370 emulator to get it a go, and now here are the sources - what a great finding. [a bit later] Added a text-based interface which makes the game much more playable. Initially I made it for DOS using conio.h. Later I decided to make a linux port, and I ported it using a linux-conio package. I had to patch linux-conio a lot, so you have to use my version. The colors are still wrong though. I also fixed an uncountable amount of bugs and added some features, I can't remember now which ones. [3 years later] I dusted off the game and finally got around to move it to autoconf. For building with Borland C under DOS, use the build_bc.bat file. It turned out Tom Almy also did a linux port and made some bug-fixing work, although to the much smaller extent than I did. I contacted him and notified about my port, but he expressed no interest. :( [a year later] I've found out that Eric S Raymond (ESR) took over the development of the Tom Almy's sources. He could use mine instead as they are much more advanced, but oh well... Now I have to find out the way to incorporate my mods into his version and hope that he can do the better work on that game than I could (which is most likely the case). ..... OK, the changes were incorporated, however Eric removed the conio port and therefore the game can no longer be compiled with bcc/DOS. The DJGPP port might still be possible in the future. -- Stas Sergeev