''Star Trader'' is a 1974

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

and an early example of the space trading genre. The game involves players moving from star to star on a map of the galaxy, buying and selling quantities of six types of merchandise in a competition to make the most money. The game was developed by

Dave Kaufman Dave may refer to: Film, television, and theater * ''Dave'' (film), a 1993 film starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver * ''Dave'' (musical), a 2018 stage musical adaptation of the film * Dave (TV channel), a digital television channel in the ...

for computers in 1973, and its

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

source code was printed in the January 1974 issue of the ''

People's Computer Company Newsletter People's Computer Company (PCC) was an organization, a newsletter (the ''People's Computer Company Newsletter'') and, later, a quasiperiodical called the ''Dragonsmoke''. PCC was founded and produced by Dennis Allison, Bob Albrecht and George Fir ...

''. It was reprinted in the 1977 book ''What to Do After You Hit Return''. The game was the inspiration for the multiplayer ''

Trade Wars ''Trade Wars'' is a series of video games dating back to 1984. The video games are inspired by '' Hunt the Wumpus'', the board game ''Risk'', and the original space trader game '' Star Trader''. History The first game with the title, "Trade Wars" ...

'' series, beginning in 1984, and is thought to be the antecedent to much of the space trading genre.

Gameplay

''Star Trader'' is a multiplayer space trading game, in which players trade resources between star systems in order to make the most money. The game presents a star map of the

galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

in which each player moves about trading between star systems of different levels of economic development. The players travel from planet to planet buying and selling six types of merchandise: uranium, metals, gems, software, heavy equipment, and medicine. The different levels of planet have different needs and produce different kinds and amounts of goods, which influences their prices. In the course of the game the level of development of planets can improve and new planetary systems can be discovered. Haggling over the price of goods is a central part of gameplay. The game's interface is

text-only In computing, text-based user interfaces (TUI) (alternately terminal user interfaces, to reflect a dependence upon the properties of computer terminals and not just text), is a retronym describing a type of user interface (UI) common as an ear ...

Development

''Star Trader'' was written by

in the

BASIC programming language BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College i ...

. The

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...

to the game was published in the ''

'' in volume 2, issue 3 in January 1974. The concept for the game is seemingly based on

Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and ...

's ''

Foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cau ...

'' series of novels.

Legacy

In 1977, the game's code was reprinted in ''What to Do After You Hit Return''. ''Star Trader'' was used as the inspiration for the first game of the ''

'' series of multiplayer space trading games in 1984, making it the ancestor of many subsequent space trader games, including ''

Eve Online ''Eve Online'' (stylised ''EVE Online'') is a space-based, persistent world massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by CCP Games. Players of ''Eve Online'' can participate in a number of in-game professi ...

'', the '' Wing Commander Privateer'' series, and ''

Elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. ...

'' series. Several unrelated but similar space trading games have been released under the name ''Star Trader''. One such game was released by

Bug Byte Bug-Byte Software Ltd. was a video game company founded in 1980 by Tony Baden and Tony Milner, two Oxford chemistry graduates. It was one of the first to develop a range of 8-bit computer games during the early 1980s, for Sinclair, Commodore and ...

Software in 1984 for the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

and Commodore 64, and was one of the games included with the

Softaid ''Soft Aid'' is a software compilation, released by Quicksilva in March 1985 to support the Famine Relief in Ethiopia. The software was released on tape for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 home computers. An audio recording of the charity si ...

compilation. Another was written by S. J. Singer in 1984 using Altair Basic, and modified by John Zaitseff for Microsoft Basic under the CP/M-80 operating system in 1988. Completely rewritten versions for CP/M-80, CP/M-86,

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

Microsoft Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...

and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

followed, with the latest release for Linux and Unix occurring in November 2019. All versions by John Zaitseff have been released or relicensed under the

GNU General Public License v3 GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

References

{{reflist

External links

The People's Computer Company Alumni Pages
People's Computer Company Alumni and History site.
Standard HP BASIC Listing #1
''Star Trader'' Game Setup Module BASIC programming language listing.
Standard HP BASIC Listing #2
''Star Trader'' Game Main Module BASIC programming language listing.
''Star Trader'' Tribute Page
Site describing the history of Star Trader.
History Of Trade Wars Variants
Timeline of the history of

variants.
Star Traders
Versions of Star Traders for Linux, as well as for CP/M-80, CP/M-86, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1 and Commodore 64. 1974 video games Space trading and combat simulators Public-domain software with source code Video games developed in the United States