Classic Computer Game: Star Trek

Star Trek is a classic computer game. There are many different versions of it.

I was first acquainted with it when I was at Dana Jr. High School in San Diego, California about 1974 when we had a single teletype terminal connected to an unknown computer. You had to sign up for a 1/2 block of time to use it, and being an avid trekkie at the time, all I wanted to do was to play Star Trek. Unfortunately this was frowned upon. You were only allowed to play Star Trek the first time you signed up, and then you were supposed to learn to program or something (which I did). The way to get around this rule was to recruit a computer newbie to sign up for a slot and then you could "assist" them in using the computer. I and a few friends did this as often as possible.

Years later, I got interested in the program again and found the source in the classic book BASIC Computer Games edited by David Ahl of Creative Computing fame. It was published in 1978 by Workman Publishing, 1 West 39 Street, New York, New York, and the ISBN is: 0-89489-052-3.

Here is a history of the program as noted by David Ahl in his book:

Many versions if Star Trek have been kicking around various college campuses since the late sixties. I recall playing one at Carnegie-Mellon UNiv. in 1967 or 1968, and a very different one at Berkeley. However, these were a far cry fron the one written by Mike Mayfield of Centerline Engineering and/or Custom Data. This was written for an HP2000C and completed in October 1972. It became the "standard" Star Trek in February 1973 when it was put in the HP contributed program library and onto a number of HP Data Center machines.

In the summer of 1973, I converted the HP version to BASIC-PLUS for DEC's RSTS-11 compiler and added a few bits and pieces while I was at it. Mary Cole at DEC contributed enormously to this task too. Later that year I published it under the name SPACWAR (Space War - in retrospect, an incorrect name) in my book 101 Basic Computer Games. It is difficult today to find an interactive computer installation that does not have one of these versions of Star Trek available.

Here is the original header from the code in the book:

10 REM SUPER STARTREK - MAY 16, 1978 - REQUIRES 24K MEMORY
30 REM
40 REM **** **** STAR TREK **** ****
50 REM **** SIMULATION OF A MISSION OF THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE,
60 REM **** AS SEEN ON THE STAR TREK TV SHOW.
70 REM **** ORIGINAL PROGRAM BY MIKE MAYFIELD, MODIFIED VERSIONI
80 REM **** PUBLISHED IN DEC'S "101 BASIC GAMES", BY DAVE AHL.
90 REM **** MODIFICATIONS TO THE LATTER (PLUS DEBUGGING) BY BOB
100 REM *** LEEDOM - APRIL & DECEMBER 1974,
110 REM *** WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS FRIENDS . . .
120 REM *** COMMENTS, EPITHETS, AND SUGGESTIONS SOLICITED --
130 REM *** SEND TO: R. C. LEEDOM
140 REM *** WESTINGHOUSE DEFENSE & ELECTRONICS SYSTEMS CNTR.
150 REM *** BOX 746, M.S. 338
160 REM *** BALTIMORE, MD 21203
170 REM ***
180 REM *** CONVERTED TO MICROSOFT 8 K BASIC 3/16/78 BY JOHN BORDERS
190 REM *** LINE NUMBERS FROM VERSION STREK7 OF 1/12/75 PRESERVED AS
200 REM *** MUCH AS POSSIBLE WHILE USING MULTIPLE STATMENTS PER LINE
205 REM *** SOME LINES ARE LONGER THAN 72 CHARACTERS; THIS WAS DONE
210 REM *** BY USING "?" INSTEAD OF PRINT WHEN ENTERING LINES
215 REM

Here is a port of that program that I did in C. You can also look at the README file, the source code , or the instructions.

Last year I released a version of Star Trek that I wrote from scratch in C. I added some features such as impulse engines, ranks, sound (such that it is), etc. I called it Star Trek 95.

Here are a few other ports and versions of Star Trek.

I would love to get a locate Mike Mayfield and get a hold of a copy of the first original source code if it still exists some where. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Links to Other Classic Computer Games