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Stellar Track: Incredibly Bad or Incredibly Underrated?


jbanes

Opinion on Stellar Track  

65 members have voted

  1. 1. Is Stellar Track good or is it Whack?

    • Severely Underrated
      40
    • Highly Overrated
      7
    • Don't really care
      10
    • What's Stellar Track?
      8

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For those interested in the origins of this game, I recently scanned/OCRed/proofread the article from 101 Basic Computer Games to HTML.

 

super_star_trek.zip

There may still be a few errors, but I used this to make a version in C and fixed a few subtle errors during the process. I got it working, except I still need to figure out how to get the input routines working right. C's scanf ain't got nothing on BASIC's INPUT statement. Nor does printf compare to BASIC's printing of floats with only as many decimal places as you need.

Edited by Bruce Tomlin
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C's scanf ain't got nothing on BASIC's INPUT statement. Nor does printf compare to BASIC's printing of floats with only as many decimal places as you need.

 

scanf can be a pain, especially when trying to make sure you don't overflow a buffer. However, limiting the number of decimal places in printf is easy. Try this for a spin:

 

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

main(int argc, char *argv[])
{  float testvar;

  testvar = 6.53261398;
  printf("Default precision: %f\n", testvar);
  printf("Precision of 5: %.5f\n", testvar);
  printf("Precision of 3: %.3f\n", testvar);
} /* end main */

Edited by skunkworx
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:-o That's a nice haul! Was it from a garage sale or friend or somesuch? Every copy I've ever seen for sale is lacking the manual. Well, the manual, 11 other carts with manuals, and a 4-switch to boot! :P

 

Memorial Day sales at the thrifts, and the Atari was missing controllers, well, except for the keypad that goes with the Star Raiders that was also in there. Oh, and it also came with the Imagic Console Storage Center, intact and in very good condition. :D

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For those interested in the origins of this game, I recently scanned/OCRed/proofread the article from 101 Basic Computer Games to HTML.

 

This was the version I actually played most back in the day. It was such fun back then to convert BASIC programs to non-standard variants, then begin tweaking the game to take advantage of a system's attributes. Maybe that's another reason I don't really care for Stellar Track.

 

I had (and continue to have) both Creative Computing Basic Computer Games books-- before my mom could afford a computer, I had these books and mentally executed the commands in order to play the games. Is Creative Computing the only magazine to have type-in games that were licensed from property holders? (Mastermind and Star Trek, IIRC.)

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I remember it from 'back in the day'. Sucked then, sucks now.

 

 

And if you think it doesn't, just ask yourself: Would you think this was a great game or a piece of crap if it had appeared on the O2 instead?

 

Mind you, Jeff Rovin was practically ejaculatory about it in his book Conquering Video Games. Then again, he disses K.C. Munchkin and gives 2600 Pac-man a higher rating...

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For those interested in the origins of this game, I recently scanned/OCRed/proofread the article from 101 Basic Computer Games to HTML.

Thanks for that Bruce! I haven't seen that article in years! One thing it did make me realize, however: Stellar Track is probably the daddy of EGATrek! I had forgotten, but no other version of the Star Trek text game used the Enterprise/Klingon graphics. They all used ASCII characters to make up for the lack of graphics. Stellar Track was probably the first one to use graphics to augment the text.

 

If you look at EGATrek, it followed the Stellar Track design to a 'T'. Dots for empty space, small graphics for the ships, etc.

 

There may still be a few errors, but I used this to make a version in C and fixed a few subtle errors during the process. I got it working, except I still need to figure out how to get the input routines working right. C's scanf ain't got nothing on BASIC's INPUT statement.

You might find a GNU library to be useful here. GNU Readline provides robust input handling.

 

---------------

 

And if you think it doesn't, just ask yourself: Would you think this was a great game or a piece of crap if it had appeared on the O2 instead?

Actually, I would have thought it to be the best title the O2 ever had. One of my pet peeves with the O2 is that Magnavox didn't make better use of the keyboard and text display. (A simple pass-through cart with printer and tape/floppy support would have made it a real home computer!) A game like Stellar Track would have made good use of those resources. Instead, we got it on the 2600 where it was out of its element. (Though still quite wonderful!)

 

And if you don't believe me, consider this for a moment: I used a very expensive Laser XT Turbo to play EGATrek for hours on end. Except for graphical improvements, it was the same game. Why would I then think that an O2 version would be a "piece of crap"?

 

Mind you, Jeff Rovin was practically ejaculatory about it in his book Conquering Video Games. Then again, he disses K.C. Munchkin and gives 2600 Pac-man a higher rating...

I don't see any reason why he shouldn't have been excited about it. 2600 BASIC was just a toy. Stellar Track, however, allowed you to play the same game that college students and professionals had been playing on multi-million dollar computers. That was quite a feat at the time!

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It had its faults, but nothing that really stood out as making it inferior to the mainframe and home computer versions.

 

I would respectfully disagree on that latter point. Using the HP-9000 version I grew up with for comparison, the 2600 is lacking in a number of significant areas:

 

-1- Photon torpedo and movement angles are restricted to multiples of 45 degrees. While this restriction is hardly unique to the 2600, it's irksome nonetheless.

 

-2- Stardates are computed solely on the basis of moving between sectors. Probably due to RAM constraints (to avoid having to deal with fractional stardates) but irksome nonetheless, especially considering...

 

-3- Impulse engines are unable to move from sector to sector. On the HP version, one could move around from sector to sector using impulse engines, even if the warp engines were damaged, but it would be slower than using warp. Depending upon the severity of warp engine damage, it may be possible to limp into a starbase for repairs rather than simply waiting for them.

 

-4- No targeting/navigation computer, though the inability to move at fractional angles makes that somewhat moot.

 

-5- Damage to warp engines requires the player to attempt to move a distance equal to the number of stardates worth of damage; the move will fail and waste stardates, but there's nothing else for the player to do with those stardates anyway.

 

-6- Mission assignments range from the absurdly easy to the impossible, but rank awards give no consideration to the difficulty of one's mission. A person who does an extremely good job on a nearly-impossible mission, barely completing it, will receive a lower rank than one who does a sloppy job on an easy one.

 

I don't know how much better Stellar Track could have been using the 2600 programming techniques of the late 1970's, but it was clearly a stripped-down version of the original.

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Actually, I would have thought it to be the best title the O2 ever had.

 

I wonder how well the O2 could have done it. The grid would work out nicely for the short-range scan, but I don't know how the long-range scan and diagnostic screens would be handled. The former would require putting lots of indicators in boxes (at minimum to show they'd been visited) while the latter would require showing lots of text. I guess Dynasty demonstrated sprite re-use early on, so maybe the text display for the diagnostic screen would have been workable. Maybe someone should give that game a go.

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I had (and continue to have) both Creative Computing Basic Computer Games books-- before my mom could afford a computer, I had these books and mentally executed the commands in order to play the games. Is Creative Computing the only magazine to have type-in games that were licensed from property holders? (Mastermind and Star Trek, IIRC.)

 

Licensed? More likely, the holders of properties saw no particular reason to complain when computers games were an obscure novelty, and were in no position to complain (having not complained earlier) when those same games became more mainstream (though they could and did squawk when newer games were produced based upon those properties).

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I had (and continue to have) both Creative Computing Basic Computer Games books-- before my mom could afford a computer, I had these books and mentally executed the commands in order to play the games. Is Creative Computing the only magazine to have type-in games that were licensed from property holders? (Mastermind and Star Trek, IIRC.)

 

Licensed? More likely, the holders of properties saw no particular reason to complain when computers games were an obscure novelty, and were in no position to complain (having not complained earlier) when those same games became more mainstream (though they could and did squawk when newer games were produced based upon those properties).

 

Considering the type-ins are accompanied by legal boilerplate/or and trademark designations:

 

Super Star Trek page scan.

Super Star Trek ®

 

® Designates trademark of Paramount Pictures Corporation. Used by Permission of Paramount Pictures Corporation

 

Master Mind scan.

Master Mind ®

 

Master Mind ® is a game manufactured by Invicta Plastics, Ltd.

 

I think it's safe to say these are actually licensed and not just rip-offs that escaped the scrutiny of the respective trademark owners.

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Considering the type-ins are accompanied by legal boilerplate/or and trademark designations, I think it's safe to say these are actually licensed and not just rip-offs that escaped the scrutiny of the respective trademark owners.

No, they were not licensed. However, these games were usually distributed at no charge to a very select group. (i.e. Computer Users) By respecting the trademarks of others, the programmers were attempting to fall under the fair-use clauses that courts have consistently upheld.

 

Besides, I seriously doubt that anyone at Paramount knew about a game that required expensive time on a multi-million dollar computer to play. Or if they did, they probably didn't care. :cool:

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Considering the type-ins are accompanied by legal boilerplate/or and trademark designations, I think it's safe to say these are actually licensed and not just rip-offs that escaped the scrutiny of the respective trademark owners.

No, they were not licensed. However, these games were usually distributed at no charge to a very select group. (i.e. Computer Users) By respecting the trademarks of others, the programmers were attempting to fall under the fair-use clauses that courts have consistently upheld.

 

Besides, I seriously doubt that anyone at Paramount knew about a game that required expensive time on a multi-million dollar computer to play. Or if they did, they probably didn't care. :cool:

 

Creative Computing's programs weren't published for "multimillion dollar" computers, they were specifically published for microcomputer use. (Though, granted, these programs typically started life on timeshare systems.)

 

Got a source for saying they're not licensed, though? Especially considering other programs published by Creative Computing fail to contain such trademark notices and tend to be renamed to avoid trademark infringement? And especially considering that sticking in phony legal boilerplate would be even more indemnifying for the publishers if the trademark owners complained? I'll grant the programmers didn't intend to do licensed games; it appears to that CC (and/or Workman Publishing for the books) got the licensing in order to safely publish the games. Paramount may not have noticed or cared if their trademarks were in use on timeshares or on paper tapes being swapped by user groups, but being used in national publications is a different matter.

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Got a source for saying they're not licensed, though?

Actually, you're right about the Creative Computing printout. I wasn't paying enough attention to what you wrote and was basing my opinion on knowledge of how it was created. According to history as I know it, the programmers rarely looked for permission for properties like Star Trek, often not even understanding that it could be a problem. Star Trek had been long distributed before anyone even considered that trademarks could be an issue.

 

However, according to the trademark acknowledgement text, they Creative Computing DID get permission before they printed. (Note the lack of such a statement inside the code itself.) Mastermind, however, does not carry a statement about having permission, which means they probably never sought it.

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According to history as I know it, the programmers rarely looked for permission for properties like Star Trek, often not even understanding that it could be a problem.

 

When the first Star Trek computer games were written, was Star Trek even trademarked? I don't think Paramount would have trademarked it until they did the movie, and I would tend to think the game predates that.

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When the first Star Trek computer games were written, was Star Trek even trademarked? I don't think Paramount would have trademarked it until they did the movie, and I would tend to think the game predates that.

As far as I can tell from the Trademark Search, Paramount didn't start registering the trademarks until the late 1970's, or about the time Phase II/Motion Picture were happening. However, trademarks are not required to be registered in order to be active. All that is required is that a company actively use the mark in their business. The ® symbol is used to show that a trademark is Registered while the symbol is used to show that the mark is claimed, but not necessarily registered.

 

An interesting legal question is as to whether or not the authors of the Star Trek game could have been sued for making an unauthorized derivitive work under copyright law? Given that computer programs were not considered copyrightable at the time, would Paramount have been able to claim that it was a creative work, much less a derivitive? Probably best to let the lawyers wonder about that one. :P

 

 

Or a .php one. :D
Sounds like a challenge :D

Pfff. PHP would be too easy. Do it in DHTML. :D

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Man, I wish that had an end label!

 

 

Oh, BTW. The $1.99 Stellar Track will be over in 7 hours. So if you're just looking for a cheap copy, grab it now!

 

There's also a new copy that has appeared on eBay for $14.99 BIN. This copy has a manual and attractive cartridge.

 

I'm considering that one....

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It had its faults, but nothing that really stood out as making it inferior to the mainframe and home computer versions.

 

I would respectfully disagree on that latter point. Using the HP-9000 version I grew up with for comparison, the 2600 is lacking in a number of significant areas:

 

-1- Photon torpedo and movement angles are restricted to multiples of 45 degrees. While this restriction is hardly unique to the 2600, it's irksome nonetheless.

 

-2- Stardates are computed solely on the basis of moving between sectors. Probably due to RAM constraints (to avoid having to deal with fractional stardates) but irksome nonetheless, especially considering...

 

-3- Impulse engines are unable to move from sector to sector. On the HP version, one could move around from sector to sector using impulse engines, even if the warp engines were damaged, but it would be slower than using warp. Depending upon the severity of warp engine damage, it may be possible to limp into a starbase for repairs rather than simply waiting for them.

 

-4- No targeting/navigation computer, though the inability to move at fractional angles makes that somewhat moot.

 

-5- Damage to warp engines requires the player to attempt to move a distance equal to the number of stardates worth of damage; the move will fail and waste stardates, but there's nothing else for the player to do with those stardates anyway.

 

-6- Mission assignments range from the absurdly easy to the impossible, but rank awards give no consideration to the difficulty of one's mission. A person who does an extremely good job on a nearly-impossible mission, barely completing it, will receive a lower rank than one who does a sloppy job on an easy one.

 

I don't know how much better Stellar Track could have been using the 2600 programming techniques of the late 1970's, but it was clearly a stripped-down version of the original.

 

How about hacking in these features, then?

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I managed to find the right terminal control calls to make my own simple readline.

 

Here's a C version with only minor touchups from the original in 101 BASIC Computer Games. One bug was fixed (checking damage control damage status instead of computer damage status for phaser accuracy), and the damage control display now just says "OK" instead of zero or a positive number for damage status. Otherwise, it's as close as I could reasonably make it.

 

It's kind of amazing how fast this game goes when you're not waiting on a 300 baud or 1200 baud terminal.

trek.c.zip

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