v1.0.2 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

Another typo correction (line 395)

v1.0.1 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

Typo Correction on Line 327

v1.0.0 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

First version of Oregon Trail for the Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer I. The source code for this version is based on the 1978 version of the game which appeared in the May/June 1978 Issue of Creative Computing Magazine. However, the original version of the game was 20 kilobytes in size, so I had to modify the game quite a bit to reduce that size to fit into my TRS-80's 14.6 kilobytes of memory. Other modifications included formatting text for the Color Computer's 31/32 column text display. Also, my TRS-80 did not come with "Extended Color BASIC," instead my computer shipped with the standard "Color BASIC" which did not have as many features. One of the features missing from Color Basic is a TIMER function for dealing with time. The original version of Oregon Trail based hunting results on how fast players could type in certain words such as "BANG," and "POW." So while my version still prompts users to type in these words to hunt, success is based on random number generation. In the end, I did my best to stay as true to the original version as possible while dealing with my vintage computer's limitations. Hope some other TRS-80 users happen to find this and have some fun with it! Email me or send me a text message if you'd like me to send you a copy of the game on cassette tape ([email protected] 469-261-0727).

v0.3.7 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

The program is now below 14 kilobytes! Currently at: 13,988 bytes! This release hasn't yet been tested and is posted "as-is" when I finally got the program under 14kb. After testing this code I will publish v1.0.0.

v0.3.6 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

Program is now down to 14.9 kilobytes. TODO: Change the method of incrementing line numbers from counting by 10s to counting by 1s. This should shave off the last 500-600 bytes necessary to fit Oregon Trail into the TRS-80 Color Computer's memory.

v0.3.5 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

Program is down to 15,332 bytes

v0.3.4 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

Program is down to 15.5 kilobytes.

v0.3.3 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

Program is down to 16.06 kilobytes

v0.3.1 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

Program is down to 16.6 kilobytes. Getting close to my 14 kilobyte goal!

v0.3.0 Oregon Trail TRS-80 Edition

Removed nearly all comments from the game to reduce the size of the program. The program is at about 17.7 kilobytes right now. My goal is 14 kilobytes. So I still need to shave off 3700 characters from the BASIC source code to get Oregon Trail to play on my Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 1 with 16k of memory (14k usable). The game's intro is roughly 2450 characters, so maybe I can reduce the game by about 2,000 characters right there from simplifying the instructions. Also, I should be able to remove 708 characters by reducing the line numbers from increments of 10 to increments of 1. From there it looks like I will have to try and shave off the last 1000 characters by refactoring things here and there. The last 1,000 bytes should be the hardest!