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First, a huge thanks goes out to Steve Scherf, one of the original Multi-Trek “THX” gold freighter authors, for providing the only known copy of the original source code. Also, a special thanks to Justin Flude for figuring out how to make the game run and for providing a live server to host it on.
None of this would have been possible, of course, without the late Multi-Trek author, Chuck L. Peterson, and the support of many programmers, contributors, and players who have helped keep the game alive. Thank you.
You can experience the game for yourself at:
TELNET mtrek.site 1993
Originally written and played at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1986 through 1990, Multi-Trek has undergone many changes throughout the years. This particular version of the game was last updated by CLP in 1993. It has been diligently preserved in its original state, aside from the minimum of changes to compile and run on a more modern machine.
It’s a sort of in-between version of the game, dubbed ‘Multi-Trek 4’ by the author. This version went live sometime after the days when students (and a few notable faculty) had to configure their UNIX terminals to battle it out over the UCSC local network, but before the mid-1990s version of the game had peaked in popularity across the wider internet.
Below, you’ll find the April 22, 1989 Multi-Trek Guide, which was packaged with the 1993 source code. The text of the document has been preserved in its entirety, with some minor formatting adjustments to display properly on this website.
Please note, this guide is not exhaustive in every detail of the game, and some inaccuracies exist because it was written for an earlier version of Multi-Trek. You can also view the January 3, 1994 guide, which serves as a nice companion to this document and includes a table of the various ships’ specifications.
Enjoy!
Bonus pic: A 1990 plot that was rescued from from the wall of a UCSC stat lab, complete with some interesting graffiti!
