Anyone remember ZOSO disks?

[Amardeep S Chana]

Back in the 80's I had some archive disks (maybe SIG/M or CPM/UG or maybe
something else?) which had files on the disk named like ZOSO.022 (for disk
#22) which was the Star Trek basic game disk.  I'm attaching below the text
from that file (best viewed with a monospace font).  I seem to recall this
person who went by the moniker of Zoso had written others as well, but I
can't find them right now.

Just curious if any of you had seen those and if anyone knows who this
mysterious Zoso person was?  If I find others I'll post them.

Regards,
Amardeep AC9MF

* * * * *

THIS DISK CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING FILES:


STARTREK.TXT THIS IS THE ORIGINAL SOURCE FILE FROM WHICH THIS PACKAGE WAS
DEVELOPED. IT IS PURPORTED TO RUN AS IS WITH MITS 8K BASIC. IT
CONTAINS ALL THE REMARKS, AUTHOR CREDITS ETC. IF YOU HAVE THIS
BASIC WITH ASCII-LOAD CAPABILITY, TRY IT !!

BIGTREK.ASC THIS IS THE RESULT OF HAVING TRIED TO TRIM THE ABOVE SOURCE SO
AS TO GET IT TO RUN (IN A 64K SYSTEM) WITH MICROSOFT'S MBASIC.
IT PRESENTLY IS ALMOST SHORT ENOUGH, BUT NOT QUITE. BECAUSE OF
THIS, THE OBJECTIVE BECAME TO MAKE IT SUITABLE FOR TDL'S DISK
BASIC RUNNING IN 64K. IT RUNS QUITE NICELY THAT WAY. ALL OF THE
FEATURES OF THE ABOVE PROGRAM ARE RETAINED, AND A COUPLE OF NEW
ONES HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED.

BIGTREK.BAS THIS IS THE COMPACTED MACHINE CODE OF THE ABOVE FILE WHICH
LOADS ABOUT 50 TIMES FASTER THAN THE ASCII VERSION (TDL DISK
BASIC ONLY). THE PROPER STEPS TO LOAD THIS ARE AS FOLLOWS :
(ASSUME YOU HAVE LOADED TDL BASIC INTO A 64K SYSTEM)...
1 - OPEN#1,"I","BIGTREK.BAS"   <CR>
2 - LOAD "B"        <CR>
3 - CLOSE#1,"I"        <CR>
4 - RUN        <CR>

TREKINFO.DOC A BRIEF TUTORIAL ON THE RULES FOR PLAYING THIS, CROSS-REFER-
ENCED WHERE POSSIBLE WITH THE FAMILIAR COMMANDS OF THE MORE
COMMONLY AVAILABLE 'STARTREKS'.

TREKMOD.ASC SEE EXPLANATION (IN POST-SCRIPT).

STRTRK/2.ASC THIS IS INCLUDED BECAUSE I LIKE THE 'COMMUNICATIONS' AND 'MIS-
SION-PROGRESS-REPORTS' THAT HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED IN THIS MUCH
SMALLER (STILL > 20K) VERSION.

NO MATTER HOW YOU GO WITH THIS, IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU WILL NEED 64K (PERHAPS
60K IF YOU USE 8K BASIC) TO RUN IT AT ALL. ONLY GUARANTEE IS THAT IT WILL
RUN
WITH TDL DISK BASIC/64K AS IS.

SINCE I CAN RUN THIS, I LEAVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE TO GET IT WORKING WITH
EITHER
MICROSOFT DISK BASIC (OR BASIC-E). ONE SUGGESTION FOR THE FORMER PROJECT
MIGHT
BE TO PARTITION THIS PROGRAM INTO TWO MODULES. THE FIRST WOULD CONTAIN ALL
OF
THE LINES RELATING TO GALAXY INITIALIZATION, DIMENSIONING STATEMENTS, DATA-
TABLES AND ALL BEGINNING OF GAME DIALOGUE - IN OTHER WORDS, LINES NOT REFER-
ENCED AFTER GAME IS IN PROGRESS. THIS FILE MIGHT BE CALLED 'STARMOD1.ASC'.
THE
OTHER MODULE, 'STARMOD2.ASC' WOULD CONTAIN EVERYTHING ELSE. THE LAST COMMAND
(TO BASIC) IN 'STARMOD1.ASC' WOULD BE: MERGE"STARMOD2.ASC". BOTH MODULES
WOULD
HAVE TO BE RENUMBERED IN SUCH A WAY THAT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 'MERGE',
EACH
NEW LINE OF 'STARMOD2' WOULD WIPE OUT A LINE OF 'STARMOD1' WHICH HAD THE
SAME
LINE NUMBER (UNTIL EVERY LINE OF FIRST MODULE WAS OVERWRITTEN BY A NEW LINE
FROM SECOND MODULE). ONE CHANGE WOULD BE NECESSITATED IN THE SECOND MODULE:
IF
A PLAYER REPLIED 'Y' TO THE QUESTION, 'ANOTHER GAME ?' A BRANCH WOULD NEED
TO
BE MADE TO A LINE WITH THE FOLLOWING COMMAND, - RUN "STARMOD1.ASC". THIS
SOL-
UTION IS A BIT 'KLUGEY', BUT PERHAPS PREFERABLE TO FURTHER TRIMMING. SEE THE
'P.S.' BELOW; THE MICROSOFT MANUAL IMPLYS (BY NO PROHIBITION) THE LIKELIHOOD
OF SUCH (ABOVE-MENTIONED) ARTIFICES BEING EFFECTIVE. THE DISAPPOINTMENT THAT
MR. DOGGE ENCOUNTERED SHOULD BE ATTRIBUTED TO HONEST EXPERIMENTATION
COMBINED
WITH (THE TYPICALLY) INADEQUATE DOCUMENTATION.



HAVE FUN !!! - ZOSO


LATE NOTE:  THE EXPERIMENT WITH MERGING TWO OR MORE MODULES HAS BEEN TRIED.
I
AM SAD TO REPORT THAT THIS APPROACH APPARENTLY DOES NOT WORK. IT SEEMS THAT
THE EFFECT OF THE 'MERGE' FUNCTION IS TO DESTROY DATA (IN ADDITION TO
CERTAIN
LINE NUMBERS). MY THANKS TO MR. E. DOGGE FOR THIS INFO. E.D. ALSO SENT A
'TRIM-
JOB' OF 'BIGTREK' CALLED 'TREKMOD'; IT PLAYS THE SAME GAME, BUT LACKS THE
'SCO-
RING' AND 'VISUAL' FUNCTIONS. NOT TO DEMEAN MR. DOGGE'S EFFORT, I CAN'T PER-
SONALLY SEE HOW THIS PARTICULAR 'STARTREK' CAN BE MEANINGFUL WITHOUT THE
SCO-
RING ROUTINE. IF THIS WERE MY 'BABY', I WOULD (IF NECESSARY) REDUCE EVERY
BIT
OF (TEXTUAL) CONSOLE OUTPUT TO A 2 DIGIT CODE SO AS TO RETAIN 'SCORING'; THE
'VISUALS' ARE CUTE BUT NON-ESSENTIAL. SEE WHAT YOU THINK. ALSO !!! THERE ARE
(IN THE 'BIGTREK' FILES ONLY) SOME CRUCIAL ERROR TRAPS WHICH I INSERTED.
LOOK
FOR THESE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 'NAVIGATE' AND 'IMPULSE' SUBROUTINES. THE
COMMON STARTREK PRACTISE OF INPUTTING A '0' WARP-FACTOR (DISTANCE) TO ABORT
AN IMPROPERLY ENTERED NAVIGATION ROUTINE WILL, WITHOUT THESE TRAPS, GIVE YOU
A 'SUBSCRIPT OUT OF BOUNDS' ERROR, AND THE GAME WILL HAVE BEEN (LITERALLY)
LOST. I SUGGEST COPYING THESE EXACTLY IF YOU WILL BE TRYING THE 'TREKMOD'
IM-
PLEMENTATION.