MBMGEMAP

MBMGEMAP is a historical starmap package for classic Galactic Empire. It has two parts: a BBS-side database extractor and a player-side DOS map viewer. The original package works with classic GE and DOS, not with ge-next or modern operating systems. A reworking for ge-next and modern systems is planned, but the linked source is not that reworking.

How the original package worked

The BBS-side MBMGEMAP program read the classic MBMGEPLT.DAT database during nightly cleanup and wrote a distributable MBMGEPLT.MAP file. Players downloaded that file and opened it with MBMGEGRF, the DOS graphing program, to view a map of discovered sectors. The historical documentation describes GIF and PCX output in the registered viewer.

The surviving source directory contains the extractor's source and documentation. Its README describes a period distribution disk that also contained executables and the player viewer; those binaries are not present in the linked source directory. This page is therefore a historical reference rather than a promise of a ready-to-run download.

The extractor uses classic GE's database names and layout. Do not run it against ge-next's live data on the assumption that the formats are interchangeable.

How the original package worked

See also