7/12/2023 0 Comments Sdltrs manual![]() The really big release of 1979, though, took them out of space and into the dungeon. Freeman and Connelley addressed these issues at least somewhat with Invasion Orion, a more accessible sequel with provision for solo play that they released early in 1979. ![]() Not only is Starfleet Orion two-player only, but it requires quite a time commitment the manual estimates the climactic scenario to require about six hours to play, with no provision for saving state. In a touch that seems particularly bizarre to modern sensibilities, the BASIC source code for the game itself is also given in full in the manual, in case the player wants to tinker or the cassette on which the game is housed gets corrupted. The setup and order of battle for each of these is given, tabletop wargame style, in the manual as the first step before actually playing one must key all of this data into the program and save it to a blank cassette using a separate program called BUILDER. Its manual lays out an elaborate back story to justify a dozen space-battles scenarios between two alien races. Starfleet Orion looks rather bizarre when viewed through modern eyes, seeming more a sort of ludic construction set than a completed videogame. To release it, Connelley and Freeman formed Automated Simulations, the first software publisher dedicated solely to games. The first fruit of this union appeared before the end of the year in the form of a space strategy game called Starfleet Orion. And so a marriage of convenience was born. Freeman was in just the opposite boat: he had been working for several years as a freelance games journalist and had a strong aptitude for game design, but knew nothing about programming. In the end he turned to one of his D&D players, Jon Freeman, for help. Even if he didn’t sell enough copies to make any real money, he could at least use the project to justify writing the PET off on his taxes as a “business expense.” Unfortunately, Connelley was a better programmer than a game designer, and so his initial attempts went nowhere. Since he loved games, he hit upon the idea of writing one for the machine. When he got the thing home and perhaps realized that the 8 K wonder’s utility for such a purpose was limited at best, he was afflicted with a bit of buyer’s remorse at the money he’d spent on it. Not sure how you do it.ĬLOAD also worked when I had a cassette loaded in.In 1978 a fellow named John Connelley purchased a Commodore PET to aid in the bookkeeping of the Dungeons and Dragons campaign he was running. The thing is I USED to be able to play these games on Pandy with SDLTRS, but I forget what buttons to press anymore.and there's no Documentation File.īut, still no way to get the programs to run. ![]() I can hover over the Casette Position and type 0 but nothing happens.Īnd I have no way of getting off this screen without F8 and totally exiting SDLTRS. I am staring right now at a screen that says the following:Īnd I can't get off the screen to make it run. But then I can't get to a screen that lets me RUN the darn thing!! I am able to, for example, get inbto the casette management area, and put a cassette in. I can try to explain what I am looking for. Maybe someone can see stuff in there that I am not understanding or am missing. But there isn'y any I can tell.so you have to program everything every time you go in.but you can do it.īut the old CLOAD and CSAVE functions do not work in SDLTRS.ĮDIT: Here's links to what I found before posting this topic. If only there was a way to save programs in SDLTRS. Of course, I was only eight years old when I programmed that in BASIC.Ĭomputer languages nowadays are far more complicated than BASIC and have moved beyond my ability to comprehend. Push button at the right time (ball always fell at the same speed, gravity does not change) - hit ball with bug, you win, game over. Bug walks along the bottom at different speeds. The game was really simple.you were a ball on the top of the screen. My first computer game program was on the TRS-80, I programmed a game called Bug Bover. ![]() I can post up a link here and see if someone else can make heads or tails out of it and give it to me in simple straightforward instructions, without all the how and why it works. But what I found was incomprehensible and not much actual help. I did a search, too, on the Google before I posted up here.hoping someone could tell me.
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