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**************************************************************************
* *
* Star Traders: A Game of Interstellar Trading *
* Copyright (C) 1990-2018, John Zaitseff *
* *
**************************************************************************
Star Traders is a simple game of interstellar trading, where the objective
is to create companies, buy and sell shares, borrow and repay money, in
order to become the wealthiest player (the winner).
The following history is presented in reverse chronological order. If you
would like to see a list of detailed changes to this project, you should
browse the Git repository on The ZAP Group web server at the following
location: https://www.zap.org.au/gitweb/trader.git
Version 7.13 (not yet released)
-------------------------------
Modified the code to work more reliably on non-Glibc (GNU C Library) plat-
forms, particularly FreeBSD, Solaris and Cygwin, when using the standard
POSIX locale.
Added the Spanish translation, with thanks to Francisco Javier Serrador.
Updated the Esperanto translation, with thanks to Felipe Castro.
Updated one string in the game for consistency with other labels; updated
all PO translations to suit. Also added strings from obsolete versions of
the GNU C Library so that Star Traders can provide translations for them.
Updated to the latest snapshot of the Gnulib GNU Portability Library. In
addition, updated the list of prerequisites in the INSTALL file and listed
some more command line options for the configure script.
Extensively tested the build procedure on multiple operating systems and
compilers, and submitted code upstream to the Autoconf Archive project to
make this work more robustly. In particular, successfully tested at least
the following combinations:
+-------------------------+--------+-------+-------------------------+---+
| Linux distribution | Arch | Glibc | Compiler | N |
+-------------------------+--------+-------+-------------------------+---+
| Debian GNU/Linux Sid | x86_64 | 2.27 | GNU C Compiler 8.2.0 | |
| Debian GNU/Linux Sid | i686 | 2.27 | GNU C Compiler 8.2.0 | |
| Debian GNU/Linux 9.5 | x86_64 | 2.24 | GNU C Compiler 6.3.0 | |
| Ubuntu 18.04 | x86_64 | 2.27 | GNU C Compiler 7.3.0 | |
| Ubuntu 18.04 | x86_64 | 2.27 | Clang (LLVM) 6.0.0 | |
| Ubuntu 18.04 | x86_64 | 2.27 | Portland PGI C/C++ 18.5 | |
| Fedora 28 | x86_64 | 2.27 | GNU C Compiler 8.1.1 | |
| CentOS 7.5 | x86_64 | 2.17 | GNU C Compiler 4.8.5 | |
| CentOS 6.10 | x86_64 | 2.12 | GNU C Compiler 4.4.7 | |
| CentOS 6.10 | x86_64 | 2.12 | Portland PGI C/C++ 18.3 | |
| CentOS 6.9 | x86_64 | 2.12 | Intel C/C++ 18.0.3 | |
| OpenSUSE 15.0 | x86_64 | 2.26 | GNU C Compiler 7.3.1 | |
+-------------------------+--------+-------+-------------------------+---+
+-------------------------+--------+---------------------------------+---+
| Operating system | Arch | Compiler | N |
+-------------------------+--------+---------------------------------+---+
| FreeBSD 11.2 | x86_64 | Clang (LLVM) 6.0.0 | 1 |
| Solaris 11.3 (x86_64) | i386 | GNU C Compiler 4.8.2 | |
| Solaris 11.3 (x86_64) | x86_64 | GNU C Compiler 4.8.2 | 2 |
| Solaris 11.3 (x86_64) | i386 | Oracle Developer Studio 12.6 | 3 |
| Solaris 11.3 (x86_64) | x86_64 | Oracle Developer Studio 12.6 | 4 |
| Cygwin 2.10.0 (Win7SP1) | i686 | GNU C Compiler 7.3.0 | |
+-------------------------+--------+---------------------------------+---+
Notes:
1. FreeBSD with the gettext, gettext-runtime, gettext-tools and libiconv
binary packages installed with "pkg", using:
./configure --with-libiconv-prefix=/usr/local \
--with-libintl-prefix=/usr/local
2. Using "./configure CC='gcc -m64'" for 64-bit user-space.
3. Using "./configure CC='/opt/developerstudio12.6/bin/cc'".
4. Using "./configure CC='/opt/developerstudio12.6/bin/cc -m64'".
The following systems are known not to work at the current time; this list
is almost certainly not exhaustive:
+-------------------------+--------+---------------------------------+---+
| Operating system | Arch | Compiler | N |
+-------------------------+--------+---------------------------------+---+
| OpenBSD 6.3 | x86_64 | GNU C Compiler 4.2.1 | 1 |
| OpenBSD 6.3 | x86_64 | Clang (LLVM) 5.0.1 | 1 |
+-------------------------+--------+---------------------------------+---+
Notes:
1. The OpenBSD C library does not include <monetary.h> nor its associated
functions, particularly strfmon().
Version 7.12 (24th August, 2017)
--------------------------------
Updated the Serbian translation, with thanks to Мирослав Николић.
Version 7.11 (18th June, 2017)
------------------------------
Bug fix: some architectures (such as ARM, PowerPC and S390) treat "char"
as "unsigned char", and this caused b64decode() to fail while loading a
saved game. Changed the relevant type from "char" to "int" to fix this.
Version 7.10 (2nd June, 2017)
-----------------------------
Added a data directory that contains a desktop file and appropriate icons.
Adjusted the game constants for more dynamic play: allow the share prices
and returns to change a bit more frequently and more rapidly. Tweaked the
colours in the example monochrome retro-computing command lines, including
adding an amber monitor version.
Added a Serbian translation, with thanks to Мирослав Николић. Updated the
Danish, French, Swedish, Hungarian, Norwegian Bokmål and German transla-
tions, in that order, with thanks to Joe Hansen, Frédéric Marchal, Anders
Jonsson, Balázs Úr, Johnny A. Solbu and Philipp Thomas respectively.
Updated translatable strings to overcome a limitation of msgfmt(1): if a
string starts or ends with a new-line character, its translation must do
so as well. This has an impact on labels in particular. Also changed the
help text string "Page N of M" to allow translations of the form "Of M
pages, this is page N", and all quoted strings using the obsolete GNU form
`like this' to 'this'. In addition, newer versions of lib/getopt.c have
different strings. All translations have been updated as a result.
Removed the obsolete Gnulib gettext module and updated to the latest Git
snapshot of Gnulib. Updated the dependency version numbers for Autoconf,
Automake and Gettext. Also updated all macros from the Autoconf Archive.
Migrated the source code repository from Subversion to Git. Updated the
documentation to suit, and also listed specific required version numbers
for the Autoconf and Automake tools in the INSTALL file.
Version 7.9 (5th January, 2016)
-------------------------------
Updated the Danish translation, with thanks to Joe Hansen.
Version 7.8 (10th September, 2015)
----------------------------------
Changed the name of the seventh company from "Gemeni Inc" to "Gemini Inc":
a spelling mistake that has been present since 1990! Special thanks to
Anders Jonsson for pointing this out.
Added the Swedish translation, with thanks to Anders Jonsson. Minor code
changes were made to accommodate this language. Incorporated changes made
by the translators for German, French and Norwegian Bokmål, in that order,
with thanks to Philipp Thomas, Frédéric Marchal and Johnny A. Solbu. Also
updated all references to GNU Gettext to version 0.19.5.
Version 7.7 (18th August, 2015)
-------------------------------
Added the Hungarian translation, with thanks to Balázs Úr. Minor code
changes were made to accommodate this language. Also added documentation
in the file INSTALL to translate Star Traders into another language.
Version 7.6 (13th August, 2014)
-------------------------------
A minor release to fix compilation bugs under Cygwin: the libiconv library
must be listed AFTER the GNU Portability Library on that platform.
In addition, the minimum and maximum share return values were changed from
-10% to -15% and 20% to 25% respectively. This gives more incentive to
borrow money from the Interstellar Trading Bank, whose interest rate can
reach a maximum of 20%.
Version 7.5 (24th May, 2014)
----------------------------
Rewrote the file input and output routines so that saved games are now
stored in a much more reliable (scrambled) ASCII format. However, saved
games from older versions will no longer load: the workaround is to start
the older version of Star Traders with the "--dont-encrypt" command line
option, load the relevant game and save it again straight away, change the
second line in the game file from "File API 7.2" to "File API 7.5", then
run the new version of Star Traders.
Added translations for Norwegian Bokmål, Danish and Esperanto (in that
order), with thanks to Johnny A. Solbu, Joe Hansen and Felipe Castro.
Updated auxiliary files to the latest versions available from the Gnulib
GNU Portability Library and the GNU Autoconf project.
Version 7.4 (9th May, 2012)
---------------------------
For the first time since the CP/M-80 version of Star Traders, the game
algorithms have been carefully reviewed and revised. In particular,
companies may now have negative returns, making players lose money on such
shares. This may encourage players to use the "Sell shares" option at
appropriate times... In addition, changes in share prices, returns and
bank interest rates have been made much "smoother", less prone to wild
variations. These new algorithms were first modelled using Gnuplot and
Perl before being implemented in C.
The "configure" script now prints a prominent warning if a wide-character
version of Curses, such as NcursesW, is not available when compiling the
game. It is a warning and not an error as single-byte locales (such as
US-ASCII and ISO8859-1) do not require NcursesW, even if the compilation
environment itself is a multibyte one (such as UTF-8).
The Russian translation has been updated, with thanks to Vladimir Tsarkov
and Pavel Maryanov. Translations for French, German, Finnish and Croatian
have been added (in that order), with thanks to Frédéric Marchal, Philipp
Thomas, Jorma Karvonen and Tomislav Krznar. Special thanks also to the
Translation Project, which brings free (open-source) software developers
and translators together.
Version 7.3 (16th March, 2012)
------------------------------
Star Traders has been translated into Russian. In addition, a number of
bugs with internationalisation have been fixed. The "default value" key
(originally "=" or ";" as the first key-press in any input field) has been
incorporated into the language translation files.
Version 7.2 (29th August, 2011)
-------------------------------
Star Traders has been internationalised! As part of this update, all
input and output routines have been rewritten to handle multibyte strings.
English (Australian, British, Canadian and US) translations have been
included. Translations for other languages (and corrections to existing
languages) are more than welcome!
Game files are now stored in UTF-8 format (once decrypted!) and can be
loaded under any locale with automatic character set translation. This
does mean, however, that game files from versions 7.0 and 7.1 of Star
Traders will not load under this release.
The program now better handles terminal resizing events (for versions of
Curses supporting such events). It also tries to restore the terminal
environment correctly when receiving a terminating signal.
Version 7.1 (29th July, 2011)
-----------------------------
A minor updated release to fix configuration problems on some platforms.
In particular, some systems could not find the Curses libraries or header
files, so the Autoconf macro that performed the search was rewritten and
extended.
Version 7.0 (25th July, 2011)
-----------------------------
Released the first version of Star Traders for Unix-like operating systems
such as Linux. It requires a text console or window of at least 80x24 in
size. The code is written in the C99 programming language as a learning
exercise for a number of software tools and libraries; the algorithms in
the original Pascal and Visual Basic versions are reused for the game
logic.
Note that versions 7.0 and 7.1 of Star Traders did NOT handle locales with
multibyte character sequences (such as UTF-8) correctly. Each byte in a
such a sequence was treated as a separate character. Eight-bit locales
(such as US-ASCII, ISO8859-1, etc.) worked correctly.
Early history
-------------
The original (and very primitive) Star Traders game was written by S. J.
Singer in 1984 using Altair Basic. This was modified for Microsoft Basic
(MBASIC) running under the CP/M-80 operating system by John Zaitseff and
released on 7th March, 1988.
Star Traders was then completely rewritten in 1990 for the Australian-
designed 8-bit MicroBee computer running CP/M-80 on a Zilog Z80 processor,
using Turbo Pascal 3.01a. Essentially, only the name of the game and some
of the ideas were retained in this version. Version 4.1 of Star Traders
was released on 1st August, 1991.
In 1992, it was recompiled for the NEC Advanced Personal Computer (with
8-inch floppy drives!) running CP/M-86 on an 8086 processor, using Turbo
Pascal 2.0. This version had colour added to it in the form of ANSI
escape sequences; version 4.4 was released on 2nd August, 1993.
The next version came in 1993, when the program was recompiled to run on
IBM-compatible machines running MS-DOS and ANSI.SYS. Turbo Pascal 6.0 was
used for this. The ANSI escape sequences were slightly different under
MS-DOS than under the NEC, in that the NEC supported a number of extra
character attributes. In other words, the MS-DOS version looked worse
than the one running under CP/M-86!
Star Traders was recompiled again in 1994 for IBM-compatible machines with
VGA/EGA/CGA video graphics adapters. The output routines were recoded to
use a "windowed" look. Borland Pascal 7.0 was used for this purpose,
along with a number of text window manipulation modules. Version 5.4 was
released on 1st June, 1994.
In 1995, Star Traders was completely rewritten for the 16-bit Microsoft
Windows 3.1 graphical environment. Microsoft Visual Basic 3.0 was used
for this purpose. Although completely rewritten, the original algorithms
were reused from previous versions. Version 6.0 of the game was released
on 15th September, 1995.
Star Traders was then to languish until almost 16 years later...
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