On Sun, 16 Aug 1998, Bob Wood wrote: If you're really asking if you can sell it to Alex for $100 (or $10 to anybody else), then the answer is probably yes. But as far as "very earliest" for microcomputers, I'd have to guess: no way. Games are still typically the first program that anybody writes for a new machine. I suspect Trek was a port of the much earlier minicomputer game, but what you're asking is basically "in the time since the first microcomputer was built in 1971, were there no games until 1976?". No way. One of the earlier better-known microcomputers was the Scelbi-8H (1973). Scelbi stopped making hardware in 1974, and supposedly went into the software and book-writing biz. I know he wrote a book on games for the 8008, but I don't know the year. Well before the Sol (or even the Altair) came out, there were already several microcomputer newsletters and magazines such as Creative Computing (1974), The Computer Hobbyist (1974), and Micro-8 (1974). I'm sure you can find a bunch of references to games in these. BTW, I don't have any machines based on the Intel 4004 (first commercial MPU), but I do have a machine and games for a TI TMS1000-based system (second commercial MPU). Interestingly, TI *still* makes versions of the TMS1000! (This message brought to you by the Destroy The Altair Myth campaign :-) -- Doug

In my recollection, Trek80 was one of the earliest "arcade" style games - certainly the earliest "real time" version of Star Trek of which I am aware. (BTW, the copyright dates on Trek80 and Target are both 1977.) I remember a BASIC implementation of Star Trek available on time sharing computers several years earlier. And IIRC, David Ahl's book "101 BASIC Computer Games" had a listing of it, and that must have been published around 1975 or 1976. But these BASIC versions all gave you as much time as you wanted to make your move. Trek80 and Target may have been among the earliest "real time" games programmed in assembler for the speed you needed for decent response from a 2 MHz 8080, and even then were specific to the memory-mapped VDM display. Perhaps other members of this list are aware of earlier arcade style games. There could not have been too many earlier attempts given the speed of output devices at the time. It wasn't until Microsoft came out with their BASIC compiler (19??) that I recall seeing games like PacMan and Ladders for serial terminals. And, Bob, if you start falling in love with the SOL, a friend is compiling an audio CD-ROM of all available PT cassette software - just substitute a portable CD player in place of the cassette recorder, and your SOL will be among the first vintage computers with a CD interface (sort of)! When he has the final version ready, I'll post how to get in touch with him. Bob Stek bobstek(a)ix.netcom.com