From: Kirk Is Subject: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980818 ("Laura") (UNIX) (SunOS/5.7 (sun4u)) Lines: 10 Message-ID: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 19:57:51 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 130.64.23.37 X-Complaints-To: news@tufts.edu X-Trace: news.tufts.edu 964555071 130.64.23.37 (Tue, 25 Jul 2000 15:57:51 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 15:57:51 EDT Organization: Tufts University Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!feeder.via.net!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!newsfeed.stanford.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.tufts.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60585 Bell Lab's "The Creation of the UNIX* Operating System" has a page that mentions a game called "Space Travel" that Thompson made at Bell Labs: http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/pdp7.html Does anyone know what it's like? I assume very different from "Space War"... -- Kirk Israel [spamblock in effect, use kirk@alienbill.com] DEALING WITH MORTALITY: A Skeptic's Guide - http://kisrael.com/mortal/ ###### From: ralph@inputplus.demon.co.uk (Ralph Corderoy) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Date: 25 Jul 2000 22:22:11 +0100 Organization: InputPlus Ltd. Lines: 15 Message-ID: <8ll0e3$m0n$1@inputplus.demon.co.uk> References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: modem-26.aldaron.dialup.pol.co.uk X-Trace: newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk 964560145 4543 62.136.101.154 (25 Jul 2000 21:22:25 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Jul 2000 21:22:25 GMT X-Complaints-To: abuse@theplanet.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!schlund.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!news.theplanet.net!newspost.theplanet.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60603 Hi, > Bell Lab's "The Creation of the UNIX* Operating System" has a page > that mentions a game called "Space Travel" that Thompson made at Bell > Labs: http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/pdp7.html > > Does anyone know what it's like? I assume very different from "Space > War"... It was a astronomical simulation of space travel, serious stuff -- not a game by today's standards. Ralph. ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Date: 25 Jul 2000 21:43:29 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 8 Message-ID: <8ll1m1$akj$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <8ll0e3$m0n$1@inputplus.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet10 X-Trace: freenet9.carleton.ca 964561409 10899 134.117.136.30 (25 Jul 2000 21:43:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: complaints@ncf.ca NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Jul 2000 21:43:29 GMT X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet10.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!schlund.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!xcski.com!freenet-news!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60602 Ralph Corderoy (ralph@inputplus.demon.co.uk) writes: > > It was a astronomical simulation of space travel, serious stuff -- not > a game by today's standards. Sounds similar to Central Point Software's PCTools Pro v9 screen saver called Stars. It enhances a catatonic state when one stares into it for a few minutes. ###### From: Dennis Ritchie Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 03:32:49 +0000 Organization: Bell Labs / Lucent Technologies Lines: 42 Message-ID: <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: trux.cs.bell-labs.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!nyc-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.onemain.com!feed1.onemain.com!uunet!ffx.uu.net!nntphub.cb.lucent.com!news Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60573 Kirk Is asked: > > Bell Lab's "The Creation of the UNIX* Operating System" has a page that > mentions a game called "Space Travel" that Thompson made at Bell Labs: > http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/pdp7.html > > Does anyone know what it's like? I assume very different from "Space > War"... Space Travel was a 1-person navigation game with no scoring: a model of the solar system (a sun, 9 planets, their then-named moons. You were in a spaceship that could thrust forward and reverse, and rotate. You tried to get to other places and land, meaning cross the surface at small-enough velocity. The display was a plan view, and it was strictly 2-D with the planets etc. just circles, the ship in the center. The bodies moved on tracks (not under gravity, though their attraction on the ship, also their orbital velocities were reasonably accurate). The timescale was adjustable, with ship's acceleration scaled accordingly. Likewise the scale of the display was adjustable with the buttons on the PDP-7. Part of the game was getting into an orbit around some body and seeing what happened when you try to change an orbit. (One's intuition is not good for this). A variant version displayed the ship in a coordinate system with a fixed orientation of the line between the ship and its attractor: in an elliptical orbit, the ship moves back and forth on this line. Your task is, say, to circularize the orbit, or to reduce its altitude while keeping the circularity. The simulation depended on the "major attractor" of the ship-- to reduce the computation load, the ship was affected only by the body exerting the largest force according to m/(r1-r2)^2. So there were peculiarities--for example, near Phobos and Deimos this number is smaller than for Mars itself. So you could navigate just inside the Martian moons until the program realized that they were more important than Mars itself, and suddenly snapped you to their surface. Dennis ###### From: greenaum@BOLLOCKSyahoo.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Organization: Rossum's Universal Robots Reply-To: greenaum@BOLLOCKSyahoo.co.uk Message-ID: <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 X-No-Archive: yes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 20 Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 21:34:16 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 213.48.197.28 X-Complaints-To: abuse@cableinet.net X-Trace: news3.cableinet.net 964647256 213.48.197.28 (Wed, 26 Jul 2000 22:34:16 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 22:34:16 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!easynet-quince!easynet.net!news-hub.cableinet.net!news3.cableinet.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60693 Amazingly enough, I mean it's astounding, the 1993 game "Frontier: Elite II" works just the same way. You do all your navigation and thrusting relative to the nearest/biggest body, and it totally screws up your attempts to land on smaller planetoids. Then I think that's the way in real life isn't it? Oh yeah, thanks for inventing C, Dennis. That was a really good one. Also thanks for Unix, 2 ideas like that in one lifetime is pretty good going. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Shyness is nice, and shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to" - - - - - - - - greenaum@yahoo.co.uk Call me morbid, call me pale - http://www.sam-x.freeuk.com/chest1.jpg ###### From: Kirk Is Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980818 ("Laura") (UNIX) (SunOS/5.7 (sun4u)) Lines: 25 Message-ID: <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu> Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 22:21:51 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 130.64.23.37 X-Complaints-To: news@tufts.edu X-Trace: news.tufts.edu 964650111 130.64.23.37 (Wed, 26 Jul 2000 18:21:51 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 18:21:51 EDT Organization: Tufts University Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.tufts.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60670 greenaum@BOLLOCKSyahoo.co.uk wrote: > Amazingly enough, I mean it's astounding, the 1993 game "Frontier: > Elite II" works just the same way. You do all your navigation and > thrusting relative to the nearest/biggest body, and it totally screws > up your attempts to land on smaller planetoids. Then I think that's > the way in real life isn't it? Aren't three body problems notoriously difficult, let alone "n-body problems"? (i.e. the interaction of three different bodies all exerting gravitational pull on one another.) It could be Elite II makes the same shortcut. 'Course, Elite II was legendary for its amount of bugs, if memory serves. (Still, it gets my vote for biggest interesting simulated universe that can fit on a 1.44 floppy disk) > Oh yeah, thanks for inventing C, Dennis. That was a really good one. > Also thanks for Unix, 2 ideas like that in one lifetime is pretty good > going. Yes, and obviously being able to get a response from such a figure says something positive about USENET, I believe, or at least this newgroup. -- Kirk Israel [spamblock in effect, use kirk@alienbill.com] DEALING WITH MORTALITY: A Skeptic's Guide - http://kisrael.com/mortal/ ###### From: viro@weyl.math.psu.edu (Alexander Viro) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Date: 26 Jul 2000 18:49:45 -0400 Organization: -ENOENT Lines: 24 Message-ID: <8lnpu9$18k@weyl.math.psu.edu> References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: weyl.math.psu.edu Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.gblx.net!feeder.via.net!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60671 In article <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu>, Kirk Is wrote: >> Elite II" works just the same way. You do all your navigation and >> thrusting relative to the nearest/biggest body, and it totally screws >> up your attempts to land on smaller planetoids. Then I think that's >> the way in real life isn't it? > >Aren't three body problems notoriously difficult, let alone "n-body >problems"? (i.e. the interaction of three different bodies all exerting >gravitational pull on one another.) It could be Elite II makes the same >shortcut. 'Course, Elite II was legendary for its amount of bugs, if >memory serves. (Still, it gets my vote for biggest interesting simulated Nah. Getting analytical solution is horribly hard (in principle, there are series for 3 body problem, but their convergence is ugly - way beyond any chance of practical use). However, numeric solution is not hard. Moreover, complexity doesn't actually increase that much with the number of objects. That might be tricky on -7, but on any x86-based box of early 90s... Come on, it will be noise compared to the time you spend talking to video memory. FPU on x86 boxen is asynchronous, so... -- "You're one of those condescending Unix computer users!" "Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a better computer" - Dilbert. ###### From: swaim@nol.net Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu> User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990413 ("Endemoniada") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/3.2-RELEASE (i386)) Lines: 12 Message-ID: X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Complaints-To: support@usenetserver.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 19:33:10 EDT Organization: WebUseNet Corp http://www.usenetserver.com - Home of the fastest NNTP servers on the Net. Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 23:33:10 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!cyclone1.usenetserver.com!news-west.usenetserver.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60635 Kirk Is wrote: > Aren't three body problems notoriously difficult, let alone "n-body > problems"? (i.e. the interaction of three different bodies all exerting > gravitational pull on one another.) Newtonian numeric solutions aren't hard. Anyway, for most spaceships, you can ignore their effects on planets/moons, and just worry about the force on the spaceship. -- Mike Swaim, Avatar of Chaos: Disclaimer:I sometimes lie. Home: swaim at nol * net Quote: "Boingie"^4 Y,W&D ###### From: Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Date: 27 Jul 2000 01:32:00 +0100 Organization: Universidade de Coimbra Lines: 79 Message-ID: <8lnvu0$o3o$1@rena.mat.uc.pt> References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu> <8lnpu9$18k@weyl.math.psu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost X-Trace: rena.mat.uc.pt 964657924 24697 127.0.0.1 (27 Jul 2000 00:32:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@rena.mat.uc.pt NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Jul 2000 00:32:03 GMT User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-981114 ("The Watchman") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/2.2.7-RELEASE (i386)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!rccn.net!rena.mat.uc.pt!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60660 Alexander Viro wrote: > In article <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu>, > Kirk Is wrote: >>> Elite II" works just the same way. You do all your navigation and >>> thrusting relative to the nearest/biggest body, and it totally screws >>> up your attempts to land on smaller planetoids. Then I think that's >>> the way in real life isn't it? >>Aren't three body problems notoriously difficult, let alone "n-body >>problems"? > Nah. Getting analytical solution is horribly hard (in principle, there are > series for 3 body problem, but their convergence is ugly - way beyond any > chance of practical use). However, numeric solution is not hard. Yes. I wrote a simple program to simulate solar systems in a SGI some years ago. Unfortunately the current interface to Open GL is different enough from what I used that the program doesn't run well (IIRC, it opens a very small (like 2x2 cm) window. Basically you use an array (n*2 or n*3, depending if you are solving the 3D problem or just considering a planar system) to keep the positions of the n bodies, another array (same size) for the velocity and a 3rd array (n*1) for the mass. Then you can calculate the acceleration of each object by summing the accelerations supplied by each of the others objects. (There is no need to calculate the force, because for that you would multiply by the mass of the attracted object and then you would need to divide again to get the acceleration. Might as well get the acceleration directly.) Then you can calculate the position in the next clock tick by numerical integration (and simple methods work ok). > Moreover, complexity doesn't actually increase that much with > the number of objects. Yes, the complexity for each step is O(n^2) (you are calculating the accelerations of n objects and for each you need to consider the other n-1 objects. n*(n-1) calculations. This problem is not embarrassingly parallel (the trivial algorithm above needs a lot of communication), but there is at least one algorithm which can run efficiently using parallelism. It uses a tree structure to store the objects and it approximates the attraction of groups of far objects using the total mass and the position of the center of mass of the group (which is stored at each level of the tree). This is used to simulate _large_ number of bodies (like, simulating the movement of a galaxy), since it can get an O(n log n) complexity. (This might be called the Barnes-Hut algorithm. I read the paper long ago. Hmm, I just checked my old files. I still have the papers. If someone is interested, just ask.) > That might be tricky on -7, Probably (otherwise I suppose Ken Tompshon would have done it). The difference in speed between an early-70s computer and a recent PC is probably around 1 million or so. > but on any x86-based box of early 90s... I used an late 80s SGI (the files have a July 1990 date). A R3000 processor, I think, so probably somewhere between a 486 and a Pentium. It was fast enough, including drawing little circles for each planet (and leaving a trail, if one wanted). I notice now that I should have thought about making a version with a little space ship accepting input from the mouse or keyboard. One of these days I will have to get a book/tutorial on Open GL and do something with that program. -- http://www.mat.uc.pt/~rps/f1/ an half-tifoso until Canada 2000 Mark Sandman - Morphine, RIP (1952-1999/07/03, Italy) .pt is Portugal| `Whom the gods love die young'-Menander (342-292 BC) Europe | Villeneuve 50-82, Toivonen 56-86, Senna 60-94 ###### From: korpela@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Date: 27 Jul 2000 01:29:25 GMT Organization: Cal Berkeley-- Space Sciences Lab Lines: 40 Message-ID: <8lo39l$hkd$1@agate.berkeley.edu> References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu X-Trace: agate.berkeley.edu 964661365 18061 128.32.18.173 (27 Jul 2000 01:29:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@berkeley.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Jul 2000 01:29:25 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!128.32.206.60!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!agate.berkeley.edu!agate!ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu!korpela Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60689 In article <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu>, Kirk Is wrote: >greenaum@BOLLOCKSyahoo.co.uk wrote: >> Amazingly enough, I mean it's astounding, the 1993 game "Frontier: >> Elite II" works just the same way. You do all your navigation and >> thrusting relative to the nearest/biggest body, and it totally screws >> up your attempts to land on smaller planetoids. Then I think that's >> the way in real life isn't it? At any rate, Elite II's control system is at least usable. More than I can say for MS Space Simulator. >Aren't three body problems notoriously difficult, let alone "n-body >problems"? (i.e. the interaction of three different bodies all exerting >gravitational pull on one another.) It could be Elite II makes the same >shortcut. Elite II probably uses an even simpler shortcut. Given the capability to trust at 20g for weeks at a time, the switch between gravity wells can be pretty abrupt. I doubt stellar gravity is included at all until you are within a few dozen radii. > 'Course, Elite II was legendary for its amount of bugs, if >memory serves. (Still, it gets my vote for biggest interesting simulated >universe that can fit on a 1.44 floppy disk) Elite II wansn't too bad for bugs, when compared to Elite III: First Encounters. First Encouters never works for more than 15 minutes at a time. I often wish I hadn't lost the manual, so I could play Elite II again. Anyone know of a crack? Eric -- Eric Korpela | An object at rest can never be korpela@ssl.berkeley.edu | stopped. Click for home page. ###### From: dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 13:47:07 +0100 Organization: I do not speak for anyone but myself, and barely that. Lines: 21 Message-ID: References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu> <8lo39l$hkd$1@agate.berkeley.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.19.67.123 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: 964709590 IIX5YQT0T437BD413C uk25.supernews.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@remarq.com X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!telocity-west!TELOCITY!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!127.0.0.1!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60707 In article <8lo39l$hkd$1@agate.berkeley.edu>, korpela@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) writes: [...] > Elite II wansn't too bad for bugs, when compared to Elite III: First > Encounters. First Encouters never works for more than 15 minutes at a > time. > > I often wish I hadn't lost the manual, so I could play Elite II again. > Anyone know of a crack? Hunt around a bit and you'll find a patch that fixes some of the more blatant bugs. It's worth it; it's a better game that Elite II. They've fixed some of the more blatant realism issues so that you can actually play it (combat is no longer a jousting match). And the fractal planets are definately sexy. -- +- David Given ---------------McQ-+ | Work: dg@tao-group.com | There is no spoon. | Play: dgiven@iname.com | +- http://wired.st-and.ac.uk/~dg -+ ###### Sender: azz@cartman.azz.net Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu> <8lo39l$hkd$1@agate.berkeley.edu> From: Adam Sampson Message-ID: <871z0e2ldg.fsf@cartman.azz.net> Lines: 17 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.6.45/XEmacs 21.1 - "Carlsbad Caverns" Date: 28 Jul 2000 18:52:11 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.159.21.132 X-Complaints-To: abuse@plus.net.uk X-Trace: stones 964818360 212.159.21.132 (Fri, 28 Jul 2000 22:06:00 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 22:06:00 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!isdnet!grolier!btnet-peer0!btnet!landlord!stones.POSTED!cartman.azz.net!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60808 korpela@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) writes: > I often wish I hadn't lost the manual, so I could play Elite II again. > Anyone know of a crack? Ian Bell (one of the Elite authors) is giving the original Elite away for free at , including the Archimedes version which includes several enhancements. The company that's working on Elite 4 is at . Chasing links from one of those should lead to a downloadable version of Frontier, and patches for it. Although the original is much more fun... -- Adam Sampson azz@gnu.org ###### From: rhawkins@iastate.edu (Rick Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Date: 28 Jul 2000 22:23:21 GMT Organization: Debian Linux site Lines: 29 Message-ID: <8lt14p$qkj$1@news.iastate.edu> References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pv2087.vincent.iastate.edu Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!unlnews.unl.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!news.iastate.edu!rhawkins Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:60800 In article <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu>, Kirk Is wrote: >greenaum@BOLLOCKSyahoo.co.uk wrote: >> Amazingly enough, I mean it's astounding, the 1993 game "Frontier: >> Elite II" works just the same way. You do all your navigation and >> thrusting relative to the nearest/biggest body, and it totally screws >> up your attempts to land on smaller planetoids. Then I think that's >> the way in real life isn't it? > >Aren't three body problems notoriously difficult, let alone "n-body >problems"? The analytic solution does not exist, although you can produce an arbitrarily accurate numerical solution. >> Oh yeah, thanks for inventing C, Dennis. That was a really good one. >> Also thanks for Unix, 2 ideas like that in one lifetime is pretty good >> going. Isn't he also responsible for bottled beer? :) hawk -- Richard E. Hawkins dochawk@psu.edu [regardless of where the message says it comes from] These opinions will not be those of Penn State until they pay my retainer. ###### Sender: Ian Stirling From: Ian Stirling Subject: Re: Thompson's "Space Travel"? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <3jmf5.205$E05.3685@news.tufts.edu> <397E5BE1.C86B165D@bell-labs.com> <398159a1.3121385@news.cableinet.co.uk> <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu> <8lo39l$hkd$1@agate.berkeley.edu> Organization: None.. User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980818 ("Laura") (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.14 (i586)) Lines: 30 Message-ID: X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Complaints-To: support@usenetserver.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2000 20:05:42 EDT Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2000 00:05:42 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!cyclone1.usenetserver.com!news-east.usenetserver.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:61238 Eric J. Korpela wrote: >In article <3wJf5.212$E05.3836@news.tufts.edu>, >Kirk Is wrote: >> 'Course, Elite II was legendary for its amount of bugs, if >>memory serves. (Still, it gets my vote for biggest interesting simulated >>universe that can fit on a 1.44 floppy disk) >Elite II wansn't too bad for bugs, when compared to Elite III: First >Encounters. First Encouters never works for more than 15 minutes at a >time. >I often wish I hadn't lost the manual, so I could play Elite II again. >Anyone know of a crack? Take a frequency sorted alphabet (e,t,a,s, ...), and save just before docking. I seem to recall there are only ~200 keys. Somewhere I ha(d/ve) a list of at least most. It allows you one incorrect dock. The REALLY annoying thing I found was that capturing small objects just isn't right, they oscillate for absolutely no reason. -- http://inquisitor.i.am/ | mailto:inquisitor@i.am | Ian Stirling. ---------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------- To do is to be To be is to do Do be do be do do