The Best of Creative Computing Volume 1 (published 1976)
Super Star Trek (BASIC computer game, history, quadrant nomenclature)
Another new game from Creative Computing...
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SUPER STAR TREK
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History
by David Ahl
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[image]
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Many versions of Star Trek have been kicking around various college campuses
since the late sixties. I recall playing one at Carnegie-Mellon Univ. in 1967 or
68, and a very different one at Berkeley. However, these were a far cry from 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 SPACWR (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.
Of course, a program like Star Trek does not stay static for long. Of the many
extensions I have seen, by far the best is by Bob Leedom of Westinghouse Defense
and Electronic Systems Center. lt's presented here as SUPER STAR TREK.
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Quadrant Nomenclature
Recently, certain critics have professed confusion as to the origin of the
"quadrant" nomenclature used on all standard CG (Cartesian Galactic) maps.
Naturally, for anyone with the remotest knowledge of history, no explanation is
necessary; however, the following synopsis should suffice for the critics:
As every schoolboy knows, most of the intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way
had originated galactic designations of their own choosing well before the Third
Magellanic Conference*, at which the so-called "2^6 Agreement" was reached. In
that historic document, the participant cultures agreed, in all two-dimensional
representations of the galaxy, to specify 64 major subdivisions, ordered as an 8
x 8 matrix. This was partially in deference to the Earth culture (which had done
much in the initial organization of the Federation), whose century-old galactic
maps had always shown 16 major regions named after celestial landmarks of the
Earth sky. Each of these regions was divided into four "quadrants," designated
by ancient "Roman Numerals" (the origin of which has been lost).
To this day, the official logs of starships originating on near-Earth starbases
still refer to the major galactic areas as "quadrants."
The relation between the Historical and Standard nomenclatures is shown in the
simplified CG map below.
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*Conference held at Federation Starbase 1, Stardates 1016-1021.
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 ANTARES SIRIUS
I II III IV I II III IV
2 RIGEL DENEB
I II III IV I II III IV
3 PROCYON CAPELLA
I II III IV I II III IV
4 VEGA BETELGEUSE
I II III IV I II III IV
5 CANOPUS ALDEBARAN
I II III IV I II III IV
6 ALTAIR REGULUS
I II III IV I II III IV
7 SAGITTARIUS ARCTURUS
I II III IV I II III IV
8 POLLUX SPICA
I II III IV I II III IV
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