When a high school sophomore’s favorite TV show is cancelled, he sets out on a determined quest to recreate it on a computer—even though he has no way to access one.
This is a truly remarkable blog, Aaron, and I'm enjoying every word of it! What I liked about your "Super Star Trek" entry is that you actually linked the game mechanics to specific episodes rather than simply stating that it was based on that TV series ("you know, the one everyone knows and loves...") the way it is usually done. It's quite interesting to note that most of the episodes wouldn't translate to video games that easily, and I'd never thought about it that way.
Thanks, Will! I'm definitely trying to dig a little deeper than the average gloss on each of these games goes, so I appreciate that you're noticing (and enjoying the series)!
After a previous mention, I downloaded the listing for Super Star Trek and started to identify and rename variables. It isn't easy! That old code is really messy and obscure. The notes above will be a big help.
My eventual goal is to rewrite the game in Python, as a coding exercise. As I think I mentioned in another post, I Python-ized "DEEP SPACE," a game that appeared in Creative Computing in the mid 70s.
I remember adding features to a game called Warp around 1982, when working at SDC with Larry Wall. It was in C on BSD unix with VT-XX terminals. Was this related at all to the BASIC game, or a sort of re-write?
Lordy, I remember playing Star Trek on an IBM/360 mainframe with core memory (and not much of it) timesharing APL in 1975 - and getting chewed out by the high school teacher in charge of the lab with the terminal (an IBM 2741, aka Selectric connected with a 134.5 bps modem) for wasting so much of his precious paper. Good times. Thanks for the memories!
This is a truly remarkable blog, Aaron, and I'm enjoying every word of it! What I liked about your "Super Star Trek" entry is that you actually linked the game mechanics to specific episodes rather than simply stating that it was based on that TV series ("you know, the one everyone knows and loves...") the way it is usually done. It's quite interesting to note that most of the episodes wouldn't translate to video games that easily, and I'd never thought about it that way.
Thanks, Will! I'm definitely trying to dig a little deeper than the average gloss on each of these games goes, so I appreciate that you're noticing (and enjoying the series)!
After a previous mention, I downloaded the listing for Super Star Trek and started to identify and rename variables. It isn't easy! That old code is really messy and obscure. The notes above will be a big help.
My eventual goal is to rewrite the game in Python, as a coding exercise. As I think I mentioned in another post, I Python-ized "DEEP SPACE," a game that appeared in Creative Computing in the mid 70s.
Dropping by to give everyone a heads up. Megawars was revived by Crimson Leaf LLC. It's available on steam under the Title "Galaxicus"
Dropping by to give everyone a heads up. Megawars was revived by Crimson Leaf LLC. It's available on steam under the Title "Galaxicus"
I remember adding features to a game called Warp around 1982, when working at SDC with Larry Wall. It was in C on BSD unix with VT-XX terminals. Was this related at all to the BASIC game, or a sort of re-write?
Lordy, I remember playing Star Trek on an IBM/360 mainframe with core memory (and not much of it) timesharing APL in 1975 - and getting chewed out by the high school teacher in charge of the lab with the terminal (an IBM 2741, aka Selectric connected with a 134.5 bps modem) for wasting so much of his precious paper. Good times. Thanks for the memories!
Thanks for your great series!
BTW, a couple of years ago I ported this Startrek game to the bot in Telegram messenger: http://altsoph.com/projects/startrek_bot/
I beleive that Commodore port of 1980 must be the Pet model, because the 64 wasn't released until 1982. By the way, great blog! Cherrs from Argentina
Or the VIC-20
This game certainly had a long line of descendants, all the way to 1992's WinTrek https://archive.org/details/win3_WinTrek