Alto Trek

Infobox VG
title = Alto Trek


developer = Gene Ball, Rick Rashid
released = 1972
genre = Space simulation/Real-time Strategy/Action
modes = Multiplayer
platforms = Xerox Alto
input = Keyboard

"Alto Trek" is a computer game, developed by Gene Ball and Rick Rashid for the Xerox Alto while they were graduate students at the University of Rochester during the late 1970s. It's one of the first networked multiplayer gamescite web|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E7D91439F93BA15751C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2|title= Serious About Research, Microsoft Makes Time for a Game|author=Markoff, John|publisher=New York Times|date=2000-02-28|accessdate=2008-03-04] .

"Alto Trek" is a multiplayer game where each player uses their own Alto workstation to control a starship. The objective of the game is to destroy the enemy without being destroyed. A player can choose between of being a Klingon, Romulan, or Terran. The game can be played by one player, but there will be no enemy to destroy.

The manual for version 2.1 is dated August 1979 and authored by Allen Wells, Bob Baldwin, and Steve Quarterman. It refers to the game as having been authored by Ball, strangely making no mention of Rashid.

Around 1997, while a vice president at Microsoft, Rashid began to reimplement the game as a way to teach himself to use the DirectX programming API. This resulted in the development of "Microsoft Allegiance".cite web|url=http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/075/075281p1.html|title=Developer Journal: Allegiance, Chapter 1|publisher=IGN|date=2000-02-16|accessdate=2008-03-04]

References

External links

* [http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/alto/trek21.pdf "Alto Trek" 2.1 manual]