💾 Archived View for thrig.me › blog › 2024 › 04 › 29 › enterprise-cloaking-device.gmi captured on 2024-05-12 at 15:14:42. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2024-05-10)
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trek(6) or equivalent versions were reputed to have burned through large amounts of paper. Someone asked how much paper Rogue (1980) would have used if played on a teleprinter, which brought up the awkward fact that rogue was programmed for an interactive display… probably you could arrange something to reprint the entire window after every move, and maybe skip the bolt animations? Because the display in rogue(6) includes a spray of terminal escape codes unsuitable for a line printer. Not impossible to translate to a line printer, but probably you would instead want to write "a game in the style of rogue" but design it for the features of a line printer (poor interactivity, lots of scrollback).
1b 28 42 1b 29 30 1b 5b 31 3b 33 30 72 1b 5b 6d |.(B.)0.[1;30r.[m|
0f 1b 5b 34 6c 1b 5b 3f 32 35 6c 1b 5b 48 1b 5b |..[4l.[?25l.[H.[|
4a 57 65 6c 63 6f 6d 65 20 74 6f 20 74 68 65 20 |JWelcome to the |
44 75 6e 67 65 6f 6e 73 20 6f 66 20 44 6f 6f 6d |Dungeons of Doom|
21 1b 5b 31 30 3b 32 39 48 2d 2d 2d 2b 2d 2d 2d |!.[10;29H---+---|
2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 1b 5b 31 31 3b |-----------.[11;|
32 39 48 7c 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e |29H|............|
2e 2e 2e 2e 2b 1b 5b 31 32 3b 32 39 48 2b 2e 2e |....+.[12;29H+..|
2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 7c 1b |..............|.|
5b 31 33 3b 32 39 48 7c 2e 2e 2e 3f 40 2e 2e 2e |[13;29H|...?@...|
2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 7c 1b 5b 31 34 3b 32 39 |........|.[14;29|
48 2d 2d 2b 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d |H--+------------|
2d 2d 2d 0d 1b 5b 32 34 64 4c 65 76 65 6c 3a 20 |---..[24dLevel: |
31 20 20 47 6f 6c 64 3a 20 30 1b 5b 32 34 47 48 |1 Gold: 0.[24GH|
70 3a 20 31 32 28 31 32 29 20 20 53 74 72 3a 20 |p: 12(12) Str: |
31 32 20 20 41 63 3a 20 38 20 20 20 45 78 70 3a |12 Ac: 8 Exp:|
20 31 2f 30 1b 5b 31 3b 33 33 48 1b 5b 31 33 3b | 1/0.[1;33H.[13;|
33 34 48 1b 5b 48 59 6f 75 20 6e 6f 77 20 68 61 |34H.[HYou now ha|
76 65 20 61 20 73 63 72 6f 6c 6c 20 74 69 74 6c |ve a scroll titl|
65 64 20 27 75 6e 69 20 76 69 76 72 6f 6c 68 61 |ed 'uni vivrolha|
27 20 28 62 29 1b 5b 31 33 3b 33 33 48 40 2e 1b |' (b).[13;33H@..|
5b 31 3b 34 38 48 1b 5b 31 33 3b 33 33 48 1b 5b |[1;48H.[13;33H.[|
48 1b 5b 4b 1b 5b 31 32 3b 33 32 48 40 1b 5b 31 |H.[K.[12;32H@.[1|
33 64 2e 1b 4d 08 08 1b 4d 40 1b 5b 31 32 64 08 |3d..M...M@.[12d.|
2e 1b 4d 08 1b 4d 1b 4d 23 23 1b 5b 31 30 64 08 |..M..M.M##.[10d.|
08 40 1b 5b 31 31 64 08 2e 1b 4d 08 1b 4d 40 1b |.@.[11d...M..M@.|
5b 31 30 64 08 2b 1b 4d 08 1b 5b 38 3b 34 33 48 |[10d.+.M..[8;43H|
23 1b 5b 39 3b 33 32 48 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 |#.[9;32H########|
23 23 23 40 08 1b 5b 36 64 40 23 1b 5b 37 64 08 |###@..[6d@#.[7d.|
08 23 1b 5b 39 64 08 23 1b 5b 36 64 08 1b 5b 34 |.#.[9d.#.[6d..[4|
3b 36 34 48 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d |;64H------------|
2d 1b 5b 35 3b 36 34 48 7c 2e 2e 42 2e 2e 2e 2e |-.[5;64H|..B....|
3f 2e 2e 2e 7c 1b 5b 36 3b 34 33 48 23 23 23 23 |?...|.[6;43H####|
23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 |################|
23 40 2e 2e 2e 2a 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 2e 7c 1b 5b |#@...*.......|.[|
37 3b 36 34 48 2d 2d 2b 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d |7;64H--+--------|
2d 2d 1b 5b 36 3b 36 34 48 1b 5b 48 53 61 76 65 |--.[6;64H.[HSave|
20 67 61 6d 65 3f 0d 1b 5b 4b 1b 5b 32 34 64 1b | game?..[K.[24d.|
5b 4a 1b 5b 33 30 3b 31 48 1b 5b 33 34 68 1b 5b |[J.[30;1H.[34h.[|
3f 32 35 68 0d 1b 5b 3f 31 6c 1b 3e 42 65 20 73 |?25h..[?1l.>Be s|
65 65 69 6e 67 20 79 6f 75 2e 2e 2e 0a |eeing you....|
For reference, the above translates into something like the following (shifted left to better fit into an 80-column gemtext display).
-------------
|..B....?...|
#####################@...*.......|
# --+----------
#
############
---+--------------
|................+
+................|
|................|
--+---------------
Star Trek the video game (1971) was by contrast designed for a line printer, unlike the earlier Spacewar! (1962) or the later rogue. Restrictions or limitations in form can be productive.
Command: srs
Short range sensor scan
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
0 . . . . . . . . . . 0 stardate 3700.08
1 . . . . . * . . . . 1 condition RED, CLOAKED
2 . . . . . . . . . . 2 position 4,3/6,1
3 * . . . * . . . . . 3 warp factor 5.0
4 . . . . . . . . . . 4 total energy 7924
5 . . . . . * . . . . 5 torpedoes 10
6 . E . . . . . . K . 6 shields up, 100%
7 * . K . . . . . . * 7 Klingons left 120
8 . . . . . . . . K . 8 time left 33.92
9 . . . . . K . . . . 9 life support active
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
The "CLOAKED" may seem unusual for the Enterprise—isn't a cloaking device some sort of Romulan thing?—though a Trekkie can probably point you to "The Enterprise Incident" (1968) where the Enterprise does acquire a cloaking device, and this fact would likely have been fresh in the memory of anyone writing a game in the 1970s. (I have vague memories of having seen that episode, jogged by peering at a summary of the episode, and did not recall that the MacGuffin absconded with had been a cloaking device. Not much video viewing here, these days, and I'm not really a Trekkie.)
A cloaking device does add depth to the game, as you can try moving for a better phaser-line on the Klingons, etc. so may make sense even if it were non-canonical.
P.S. the capture of the rogue output was done via
$ rogue | tee blah
...
Which means that output from rogue is going to both the given file, and to the terminal for display; standard input remains wired up to the terminal for keyboard input.