Explore the chronology of Star Trek gameplay and code

Explore the original BASIC versions of the Star Trek text game, from 1971 on: read their code, see where each came from, and play the ones that run.

Star Trek (1971): The original: a text strategy game written on a mainframe by a high-school student.
Star Trek (script game) (1971): No map at all: dramatic dialogue and numbered orders, one enemy ship per episode.
Star Trek (STTR1) (1972): The rewrite that spread: Hewlett-Packard put it in its public program library.
UT-Trek (1973): Texas's own 1973 version: a Klingon Commander, ramming, a Death Ray and a secret self-destruct password.
TREK (Insinga) (1973): A compact RSTS-11 program whose opening orders and events match UT's, not Ahl's.
SPACWR (Space War) (1973): David Ahl's DEC port of the HP game, in DEC's August 1973 games package.
TREK73 (1973): Pure tactical combat with dozens of commands, so big it needed HP's COM and CHAIN.
strtrk (with strtr1 instructions) (1973): An undated BASIC-PLUS pair that shares the UT/Insinga text and is not in Ahl's packages.
R O M U L A N (1973): A Romulan-side ship duel: command the RSS Vindictae.
Super Star Trek (1974): Bob Leedom's expansion: three-letter commands, a better map, and comments from the crew.
SPACWR (OS/8) (1974): Kay Fisher's port of Ahl's SPACWR to the PDP-8's OS/8 BASIC.
TREKB (1974): A San Mateo school version, converted from a 'BOCES BASIC' Star Trek.
TREKD (TREK2) (1974): 'Pits you against 1–15 Klingons': a small school Star Trek.
Star Trek (Cochran) (1976): An Altair adaptation that carries the UT/Insinga instruction text to a microcomputer.
3-Dimensional Star Trek (newgame4) (1976): A three-dimensional Star Trek with a secret password and a library computer.
Super Star Trek (trek15) (1976): A BASIC translation of the 1974 UT CDC 6600 FORTRAN Super Star Trek.
Star Trek (Tiny BASIC) (1976): A tiny descendant of Cochran's game, squeezed into Li-Chen Wang's Tiny BASIC.
Apple Star Trek (1976): Bob Bishop's Star Trek for the Apple-1, 88 lines.
BIGMES (1976): An HP 2000 version with a Death Ray and time-warp transfer, punched on tape by Doug Quebbeman.
Super Star Trek (1978): The version printed in the first computer book to sell a million copies, and run on almost every microcomputer.
APPLETREK (1978): W. Sander's Apple ][ game, leaning on PEEK, POKE and text positioning.
$TREK4T (YTREK) (1978): Four players at four terminals, formatted after TREK73.
TREKC (1978): David Shayer's copyrighted 1978 Star Trek.
Super Star Trek (CP/M) (1978): A CP/M adaptation of the Ahl/Leedom Super Star Trek, with screen codes and redrawn maps.
TREK73 (1978 revision) (1978): A 1978 revision and renumbering of TREK73, chained to TREK1–4.
STTR (1978): Ralph Hopkins's STTR for the Sol-20, from a Univac STTR2.
TREKE (1978): An HP 2000 program carrying UT/Insinga-style instruction text; held by 1984.
STAR TREK ]I[ (1979): An Applesoft version with machine-language calls and hand-placed text.
STREK (1980): A Sorcerer conversion of the Ahl/Leedom game, credited to Nicholson and Turnbull.
TREK73 (TREK01–TREK15) (1980): David Shayer's fifteen-module rework of TREK73.
COMBAT (1982): Ralph Hopkins's COMBAT, a ship-to-ship game in the Trek tradition.
Galaxy V2 (1982): Acornsoft's Galaxy V2 for the BBC Micro, with procedures, sound and mode-7 graphics.
trek.bas (Ensign) (1982): A commercial-looking PC BASIC Star Trek that uses function keys and cursor positioning.
strek (BBC) (1983): A BBC BASIC conversion of the Ahl/Leedom game.

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Early History · Text games

Explore the chronology of Star Trek gameplay and code

Before multiplayer, there was a starship and a single player. Follow the early BASIC versions of the game from 1971 on, read the original code, and play the ones that already run.