Mike Hall's Asteroids Applet,

Altered by Rudy Rucker

Play the Game!

Try one of these two links.  Files were last upgraded on December 23, 1999.

[And they still seem to work under Firefox in 2010. Note that you may have to download a Java plug-in for Firefox.]

Asteroids Alive Internet Explorer 4.0, Netscape 4.5, or Higher. Try this one first.  This version is Java 1.1 in a single "jar" file.  Loads faster than the other.

Asteroids Alive for All Browsers. This version is Java 1.0 in multiple files.  Loads a bit slower, but works on more platforms.

If all goes well, your machine will first start up Java, which takes a minute, then download our java code which takes a minute, and then load some sound files, which can take several minutes.  And then a nice little game program should begin.

About Asteroids Alive

The original Asteroids Java applet was written by Mike Hall.  This revised version is copyright (c) Mike Hall 1998 and copyright (c) Rudy Rucker 1999. This revised version is copyright More information can be found below.

While teaching Object Oriented Programming at SJSU in Fall, 1999, Rucker made a number of changes to the Hall Asteroids program.  To differentiate it from Hall's original version, call it Asteroids Alive.  Here are two versions of the applet to run on the web, one for Java 1.0, one for Java 1.1.

Browser Requirements

• Java 1.0 is supported by Netscape 3 and MS Internet Explorer 3 (and higher).
• Java 1.1 is supported by Netscape 4.5 and MS Internet Explorer 4 (and higher).  It is said that you can get Java 1.1 to work on a Mac by getting the Mac Runtime for Java (MRJ) from Apple, although I haven't tested this. If it works for you, let me know.
• These requirements pertain to Win95/Win98/WinNT. I have done very little testing on other computer types.
• These applets may also work fine in non-Netscape, non-MS browsers.

Asteroids Links

Asteroids Alive for Java 1.1 in a Jar File.   This is the one you should  try running first, and if it works, always use it.  Because it's in a "jar" file it will load a little easier than the multiple file Java 1.0 version. 

Asteroids Alive for Java 1.0 in Multiple Files.    This is the should run on every machine.  Because loading this involves starting Java and getting a number of files, it takes a minute or two to start up.  (Note however that it may run too slowly on Macs. In that case, get the MRJ from Apple mentioned above.)

Mike Hall's Asteroids. The original applet is running here, and you can download Hall's source and executable from here as well.  Also look at the License Agreement on this page if you plan to post your own version of Asteroids.

Asteroids Alive Source.   This page shows the code for Asteroids Alive.

Asteroids Alive Documentation. This links to a collection of pages documenting the classes, members and methods used in the Asteroids applet. The documentation was generated by the Javadoc utility.

Download Asteroids Alive Source.   A ZIP file which includes Java source code, test page,  sound files.