A Piece Of History Star Trek Game

To boldly go…

In 1971, Mike Mayfield probably didn't know what he was starting when he wrote his very first Star Trek game. In the course of the following year, he had already ported it to Hewlett Packard BASIC.

Soon after releasing source of this game in that book, various peoples started translating this game for multiple different computers and operating systems. To see the "consequences" of Mike Mayfield's game, we need to use an time line of the more known versions of this game in the 1970s.

1971:

• Mike Mayfield wrote first version of Star Trek in BASIC for the Sigma 7.

1972:

• Mike Mayfield rewrote it for Hewlett Packard BASIC.

1973:

• David Ahl translated the game for DEC BASIC.
• David Ahd translated this same game for RSTS-11 (BASIC PLUS) with help from Mary Cole.
• David Ahl published a book 101 BASIC Computer Games where this game was included with the name SPACWR (Space War).
• Grady Hicks and Jim Korp published an extended version of the game for TAURUS.

1973/1974:

• Kay Fisher translates it for OS-8 BASIC converting it to PDP-8.

1974:

• Kay Fisher creates the first DEC FORTRAN-IV version of the game.
• Graham Toal rescues simplified version of TREK73, written in IMP at The University of Edinburgh. There is no certainty as to who the author is but the name Dave Briggs is often mentioned as the author.

1976:

• HP 2000 version by Doug Quebbeman.
• Lynn Cochran's version for Altairs.
• Two small versions for Palo Alto TINY BASIC. Author unknown.
• Ron Williams writes an intellect MDS version, adapted from the FORTRAN version.
• 3-Dimensional version for a CDC 6000. Author unknown.
• 3-Dimensional version for PR1ME BASIC/VM. Author unknown.
• Bob Bishop writes Apple Star-Trek for Apple INTEGER BASIC.
• C version for UNIX by Eric Allman.

1978:

• BASIC-80 for CP/M translation by Creative Computing.
• INTEGER BASIC version for Apple ][, by W. Sander.

1979:

• Kurt Wilhelm writes the COBOL version.

The information listed above is just the tip of the iceberg. Numerous variations and translations were made back in the 1970s. Back in those days, games were considered as total waste of computing time so administrators usually removed games when they spotted them.

After 70's:

In the 80's, 90's and even in this millenium, there has been published new versions of this, probably one of the most ported games ever.

• Chris Nystrom's C port of Mayfield-style StarTrek in 1995
• 1998 Michael Baker wrote Palm Trek for the Palm Pilot.
• December 2003, Jim Bat finished he's Super Star Trek as a Java applet.
• OpenTrek is a 3D update of the classic Super Star Trek game.

OpenTrek 3D

Related Links:

• trek.bas Mike Mayfield's original HP BASIC source from year 1972.
• Star Trek game page Excellent website to learn more about this game. Also includes dozens of sources/binaries of different versions of this game.
• OpenTrek is a 3d update of the classic "Super Star Trek" game. OpenTrek is open source, released under the GNU General Public License.
• DigiBarn Books BASIC Computer Games by David Ahl.
• TREK73 Page Kermit Murray's page with links to other versions and websites.
• wohnung jena One more version.

E.K.Virtanen