Back in the 80's I had some archive disks (maybe SIG/M or CPM/UG or maybe something else?) which had files on the disk named like ZOSO.022 (for disk #22) which was the Star Trek basic game disk. I'm attaching below the text from that file (best viewed with a monospace font). I seem to recall this person who went by the moniker of Zoso had written others as well, but I can't find them right now.
Just curious if any of you had seen those and if anyone knows who this mysterious Zoso person was? If I find others I'll post them. Regards, Amardeep AC9MF * * * * * THIS DISK CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING FILES: STARTREK.TXT THIS IS THE ORIGINAL SOURCE FILE FROM WHICH THIS PACKAGE WAS DEVELOPED. IT IS PURPORTED TO RUN AS IS WITH MITS 8K BASIC. IT CONTAINS ALL THE REMARKS, AUTHOR CREDITS ETC. IF YOU HAVE THIS BASIC WITH ASCII-LOAD CAPABILITY, TRY IT !! BIGTREK.ASC THIS IS THE RESULT OF HAVING TRIED TO TRIM THE ABOVE SOURCE SO AS TO GET IT TO RUN (IN A 64K SYSTEM) WITH MICROSOFT'S MBASIC. IT PRESENTLY IS ALMOST SHORT ENOUGH, BUT NOT QUITE. BECAUSE OF THIS, THE OBJECTIVE BECAME TO MAKE IT SUITABLE FOR TDL'S DISK BASIC RUNNING IN 64K. IT RUNS QUITE NICELY THAT WAY. ALL OF THE FEATURES OF THE ABOVE PROGRAM ARE RETAINED, AND A COUPLE OF NEW ONES HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED. BIGTREK.BAS THIS IS THE COMPACTED MACHINE CODE OF THE ABOVE FILE WHICH LOADS ABOUT 50 TIMES FASTER THAN THE ASCII VERSION (TDL DISK BASIC ONLY). THE PROPER STEPS TO LOAD THIS ARE AS FOLLOWS : (ASSUME YOU HAVE LOADED TDL BASIC INTO A 64K SYSTEM)... 1 - OPEN#1,"I","BIGTREK.BAS" <CR> 2 - LOAD "B" <CR> 3 - CLOSE#1,"I" <CR> 4 - RUN <CR> TREKINFO.DOC A BRIEF TUTORIAL ON THE RULES FOR PLAYING THIS, CROSS-REFER- ENCED WHERE POSSIBLE WITH THE FAMILIAR COMMANDS OF THE MORE COMMONLY AVAILABLE 'STARTREKS'. TREKMOD.ASC SEE EXPLANATION (IN POST-SCRIPT). STRTRK/2.ASC THIS IS INCLUDED BECAUSE I LIKE THE 'COMMUNICATIONS' AND 'MIS- SION-PROGRESS-REPORTS' THAT HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED IN THIS MUCH SMALLER (STILL > 20K) VERSION. NO MATTER HOW YOU GO WITH THIS, IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU WILL NEED 64K (PERHAPS 60K IF YOU USE 8K BASIC) TO RUN IT AT ALL. ONLY GUARANTEE IS THAT IT WILL RUN WITH TDL DISK BASIC/64K AS IS. SINCE I CAN RUN THIS, I LEAVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE TO GET IT WORKING WITH EITHER MICROSOFT DISK BASIC (OR BASIC-E). ONE SUGGESTION FOR THE FORMER PROJECT MIGHT BE TO PARTITION THIS PROGRAM INTO TWO MODULES. THE FIRST WOULD CONTAIN ALL OF THE LINES RELATING TO GALAXY INITIALIZATION, DIMENSIONING STATEMENTS, DATA- TABLES AND ALL BEGINNING OF GAME DIALOGUE - IN OTHER WORDS, LINES NOT REFER- ENCED AFTER GAME IS IN PROGRESS. THIS FILE MIGHT BE CALLED 'STARMOD1.ASC'. THE OTHER MODULE, 'STARMOD2.ASC' WOULD CONTAIN EVERYTHING ELSE. THE LAST COMMAND (TO BASIC) IN 'STARMOD1.ASC' WOULD BE: MERGE"STARMOD2.ASC". BOTH MODULES WOULD HAVE TO BE RENUMBERED IN SUCH A WAY THAT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 'MERGE', EACH NEW LINE OF 'STARMOD2' WOULD WIPE OUT A LINE OF 'STARMOD1' WHICH HAD THE SAME LINE NUMBER (UNTIL EVERY LINE OF FIRST MODULE WAS OVERWRITTEN BY A NEW LINE FROM SECOND MODULE). ONE CHANGE WOULD BE NECESSITATED IN THE SECOND MODULE: IF A PLAYER REPLIED 'Y' TO THE QUESTION, 'ANOTHER GAME ?' A BRANCH WOULD NEED TO BE MADE TO A LINE WITH THE FOLLOWING COMMAND, - RUN "STARMOD1.ASC". THIS SOL- UTION IS A BIT 'KLUGEY', BUT PERHAPS PREFERABLE TO FURTHER TRIMMING. SEE THE 'P.S.' BELOW; THE MICROSOFT MANUAL IMPLYS (BY NO PROHIBITION) THE LIKELIHOOD OF SUCH (ABOVE-MENTIONED) ARTIFICES BEING EFFECTIVE. THE DISAPPOINTMENT THAT MR. DOGGE ENCOUNTERED SHOULD BE ATTRIBUTED TO HONEST EXPERIMENTATION COMBINED WITH (THE TYPICALLY) INADEQUATE DOCUMENTATION. HAVE FUN !!! - ZOSO LATE NOTE: THE EXPERIMENT WITH MERGING TWO OR MORE MODULES HAS BEEN TRIED. I AM SAD TO REPORT THAT THIS APPROACH APPARENTLY DOES NOT WORK. IT SEEMS THAT THE EFFECT OF THE 'MERGE' FUNCTION IS TO DESTROY DATA (IN ADDITION TO CERTAIN LINE NUMBERS). MY THANKS TO MR. E. DOGGE FOR THIS INFO. E.D. ALSO SENT A 'TRIM- JOB' OF 'BIGTREK' CALLED 'TREKMOD'; IT PLAYS THE SAME GAME, BUT LACKS THE 'SCO- RING' AND 'VISUAL' FUNCTIONS. NOT TO DEMEAN MR. DOGGE'S EFFORT, I CAN'T PER- SONALLY SEE HOW THIS PARTICULAR 'STARTREK' CAN BE MEANINGFUL WITHOUT THE SCO- RING ROUTINE. IF THIS WERE MY 'BABY', I WOULD (IF NECESSARY) REDUCE EVERY BIT OF (TEXTUAL) CONSOLE OUTPUT TO A 2 DIGIT CODE SO AS TO RETAIN 'SCORING'; THE 'VISUALS' ARE CUTE BUT NON-ESSENTIAL. SEE WHAT YOU THINK. ALSO !!! THERE ARE (IN THE 'BIGTREK' FILES ONLY) SOME CRUCIAL ERROR TRAPS WHICH I INSERTED. LOOK FOR THESE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 'NAVIGATE' AND 'IMPULSE' SUBROUTINES. THE COMMON STARTREK PRACTISE OF INPUTTING A '0' WARP-FACTOR (DISTANCE) TO ABORT AN IMPROPERLY ENTERED NAVIGATION ROUTINE WILL, WITHOUT THESE TRAPS, GIVE YOU A 'SUBSCRIPT OUT OF BOUNDS' ERROR, AND THE GAME WILL HAVE BEEN (LITERALLY) LOST. I SUGGEST COPYING THESE EXACTLY IF YOU WILL BE TRYING THE 'TREKMOD' IM- PLEMENTATION.
