About
Super Star Trek is a text-only, turn-based space strategy game written in BASIC, first created by Mike Mayfield in 1971 for the Sigma 7 mainframe, then expanded by Bob Leedom in 1974; it became widely known after its program listing appeared in the 1978 book "BASIC Computer Games – Microcomputer Edition," edited by David H. Ahl. This project provides "faithful" Perl and Lua ports of the 1978 BASIC listing of Super Star Trek, based on the code published in David Ahl's book, with the original BASIC source included in an "original-version" folder sourced from Vintage Basic. The Perl version was written first as a near-literal conversion before being refactored into functions with meaningful variable names; the Lua version followed, restructuring code that relied on BASIC's goto patterns into loops and functions, while preserving the original game's math and mechanics.
How it differs from the original
One variant, startrek-tos.lua, adds voice clips from the original Star Trek: The Original Series cast on top of the otherwise faithful conversion, and both ports add a deliberate text-scroll delay (togglable) to mimic how the game appeared on period hardware like the Commodore 64.
Getting started
Multiple versions are included: superstartrek.pl (Perl, easy to run since Perl is preinstalled on Mac), superstartrek.lua (a faithful Lua port), and startrek-tos.lua (an enhanced Lua version with cast voice clips).
History
The game traces back to Mike Mayfield's 1971 original for the Sigma 7 mainframe; Bob Leedom expanded it into Super Star Trek in 1974, and its 1978 publication in David Ahl's "BASIC Computer Games" book, alongside the rise of home computers in 1977, made it one of the most widely distributed BASIC games ever written.