<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
</literallayout>
<!-- This is new in SST 2K -->
-<para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, it should never
-be necessary to call this command explicitly; a short-range scan will
-always be present on the screen.</para>
+<para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, this command is
+suppressed; instead, a short-range scan will always be present on the
+screen.</para>
<para>The short-range scan gives you a considerable amount of information
about the quadrant your starship is in. A short-range scan is best
Shortest abbreviation: ST
</literallayout>
+<!-- This is new in SST 2K -->
+<para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, this command is
+suppressed; instead, a full status report will always be present on the
+screen.</para>
+
<para>This command gives you information about the current state of your
starship as follows:</para>
Shortest abbreviation: L
</literallayout>
-<!-- This is new in SST 2K -->
-<para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, it should never
-be necessary to call this command explicitly; a long-range scan will
-always be present on the screen.</para>
+<!-- This is new in SST 2K -->
+<para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, this command is
+suppressed; instead, a long-range scan will always be present on the
+screen.</para>
<para>A long-range scan gives you general information about where you are
and what is around you. Here is an example output.</para>
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
<sect1><title>Call Starbase for Help</title>
<literallayout>
-Mnemonic: CALL
+Mnemonic: MAYDAY
(No abbreviation)
</literallayout>
<para>[Originally, this command was called <quote>HELP</quote>, but
-these days it might be misinterpreted as built-in
-documentation!]</para>
+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
Full command: REQUEST <ITEM>
</literallayout>
+<!-- This is new in SST 2K -->
+<para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, this command is
+suppressed; instead, a full status report will always be present on the
+screen.</para>
+
<para>This command allows you to get any single piece of information
from the <STATUS> command. <ITEM> specifies which
information as follows:</para>
<row><entry>SHIELDS</entry> <entry>SHIELDS</entry> <entry>S</entry></row>
<row><entry>KLINGONS LEFT</entry><entry>KLINGONS</entry> <entry>K</entry></row>
<row><entry>TIME LEFT</entry> <entry>TIME</entry> <entry>TI</entry></row>
+<row><entry>BASES LEFT</entry> <entry>BASES</entry> <entry>BA</entry></row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
<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
------ ------------ -----------
ABANDON ABANDON shuttle craft
C CHART (none)
- CALL CALL (for help) subspace radio
CO COMPUTER computer
CR CRYSTALS (none)
DA DAMAGES (none)
I IMPULSE <MANUAL> <DISPLACEMENT> impulse engines
IMPULSE AUTOMATIC <DESTINATION> impulse engines and computer
L LRSCAN long-range sensors
+ MAYDAY MAYDAY (for help) subspace radio
MI MINE (none)
M MOVE <MANUAL> <DISPLACEMENT> warp engines
MOVE AUTOMATIC <DESTINATION> warp engines and computer
</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; in 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 SST2K is descended from 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 played the
+Hicks version on a CDC6600, but disliked the long load time and
+extreme slowness of the BASIC program. (David Matuszek notes that the
+version of the Hicks port he played had a habit of throwing long
+quotes from Marcus Aurelius at the users, a feature he found
+intolerable at 110 baud.) The Austinites proceeded to write their own
+Trek game, loosely based on the Hicks version, in CDC6600 FORTRAN. At
+that time, it was just called "Star Trek"; the "Super" was added by
+later developers.</para>
+
+<para>The name "Super Star Trek" and many design features may have
+been picked up from a descendant of SPACEWR, reworked by Robert Leedom
+and friends and published by David Ahl in his 1978 sequel
+<citetitle>BASIC Computer Games</citetitle>. On the other hand, there
+is internal evidence to suggest that at least some features of Leedom's
+SST may have derived from the UT FORTRAN version. In particular, Dave
+Matuszek recalls implementing command words to replace the original
+numeric command codes, and this was apparently before 1978.</para>
+
+<para>One signature trait of the UT FORTRAN game and its descendants
+is that the sectors are 10x10 (rather than the 8x8 in Mike Mayfield's
+1972 original and its BASIC descendants). The UT FORTRAN version also
+preserves the original numbered quadrants rather than the
+astronomically-named quadrants introduced in Ahl's SST and its
+descendants.</para>
+
+<!-- Dave thinks his Fortran Star Trek used the clockface for quadrant -->
+<!-- navigation. -->
+
+<para>Eric Allman's BSD Trek game is one of these, also descended from
+FORTRAN Star Trek via translation to C. However, the mainline S (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
site</ulink>.</para>
-<para>After I launched the Berlios project, Stas Sergeev contacted me
-me. We worked together to merge in his changes.</para>
+<para>After I launched the Berlios project, Stas Sergeev contacted me.
+We worked together to merge in his changes.</para>
<para>Modifications I've made:</para>
an identifiable magic number and the thaw logic checks for same.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
-I made the internal pager work, nd in the process got rid of a number
+I made the internal pager work, and in the process got rid of a number
of platform dependencies in the code.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
-The HELP/CALL/SOS command is now MAYDAY. SOS and CALL are still accepted.
+The HELP/CALL/SOS command is now MAYDAY.
+</para></listitem>
+<listitem><para>
+Status report now indicates if dilithium crystals are on board.
+</para></listitem>
+<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>
projects / super-star-trek.git / blobdiff