X-Git-Url: https://jxself.org/git/?p=super-star-trek.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=sst-doc.xml;h=79ae60732db04fb6f23d313631ba7e63eb028dfa;hp=2af003c27aa0c8c4cedb8ab34a4f7ca460bce2b0;hb=9f2406f134c8e82a6ef14943c5eaf6ee2bee3af7;hpb=3ee4e7935ce2710f45d60df2eaf25bcc802c729b
diff --git a/sst-doc.xml b/sst-doc.xml
index 2af003c..79ae607 100644
--- a/sst-doc.xml
+++ b/sst-doc.xml
@@ -172,7 +172,7 @@ game.
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
@@ -768,18 +768,18 @@ instantaneously, the hits you receive will be intermediate between
what they would be if the shields were completely up or completely
down.
-You may not fire phasers through your shields. However you may use
-the high-speed shield control
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
+You may not fire phasers through your shields. However you may
+use the high-speed shield control
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).
You may transfer energy beteen the ship's energy (given as
-Energy
in the status) and the shields. Thee word
+Energy
in the status) and the shields. The word
TRANSFER
may be abbreviated T
. 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
@@ -1015,10 +1015,10 @@ Mnemonic: MAYDAY
[Originally, this command was called HELP
, 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.]
-When you get into serious trouble, you may call starbase for
+When you get into serious trouble, you may call a starbase for
help. Starbases have a device called a long-range transporter
beam
which they can use to teleport you to base. This works
by dematerializing your starship at its current position and
@@ -1400,9 +1400,9 @@ inform you how long the base under attack can last. Since the
Super-Commander
is more powerful than an ordinary
commander, he can destroy a base more quickly.
-The Super-Commander
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.
+The Super-Commander
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.
Scattered through the galaxy are certain zones of control,
collectively designated the Romulan Neutral Zone
. Any
@@ -1572,6 +1572,72 @@ Impulse engines require 20 units to warm up, plus 100 units per
Game History and Modifications
+Origins
+
+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.
+
+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
+
+SPACEWAR, the earlier space-combat game on the
+PDP-1. Mayfield wrote
+in 2000 that he invented the Trek-style galactic grid, and the
+evidence seems to back that up.
+
+Many different versions radiated from Mayfield's original; most
+are descended from a version misleadingly called SPACEWR that David
+Ahl published in 101 BASIC Computer Games,
+1973. This was a port of Mayfield's version obtained from the HP
+Contributed Programs library.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+BASIC Computer Games. 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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
Tom Almy's story
Back in (about) 1977 I got a copy of this Super Star Trek game for
@@ -1698,6 +1764,8 @@ better anyway.
+My changes got merged into SST2K in 2005, and I wortk on it now.
+
Eric Raymond's story
@@ -1713,19 +1781,7 @@ url='http://www.catb.org/retro/'>Retrocomputing Museum.
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.
-
-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.
-
-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.
+version he co-wrote.
This game is now an open-source project; see the project
@@ -1774,6 +1830,10 @@ Status report now indicates if dilithium crystals are on board.
At Dave's prompting, restored the Space Thingy's original elusive behavior.
+
+Clean separation of game engine from the UI code, improving Stas
+Sergeev's excellent work on the curses interface.
+
Here are some good pages on the history of Star Trek games: