Elite turns 25

zappaDPJ · Sep 22, 2009, 15:56:14

A great trip down (32K) memory lane!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8266017.stm

Rik · Sep 22, 2009, 16:00:09

That takes me back a bit - well, quite a lot really.

gizmo71 · Sep 22, 2009, 16:56:36

It owes everything to Star Raiders.

Rik · Sep 22, 2009, 17:07:20

And the BBC.

Lance · Sep 22, 2009, 20:06:25

Its older than me, thats for sure!

kinmel · Sep 22, 2009, 21:29:31

You can run Elite on Windows in DOS mode.

The whole program is less than 96k !

I like the start up splash screen which reads:-

To allow for the different speeds of machines two different versions of ELITE have been supplied.

The shaded version of ELITE has far nicer graphics, but unless your machine is powerful (6MHz 80286 or greater)
it will not run very quickly and you should select the line drawn version.

Do you want to run :-

F1) Shaded ELITE

F2) Line drawn ELITE

It is hard to imagine anything running in 96k now, we spent hours trading. Happy days.

-------------------------------------------

You can try the original game if you wish. Unzip and run Elite.com and select F1, at the next screen type in any word and the game will then start. You need to work out the details for yourself.

Note to the Admins, if you are not happy with the program being listed on the forum, simply delete below the line, but I understand it is is now freeware.

Lance · Sep 22, 2009, 22:41:39

This is fine, Alan. It looks like Ian Bell has available from his website anyway.

Rik · Sep 23, 2009, 09:26:33

I can remember the royalty discussions for that program, as I was writing for Acorn myself at the time. I could only manage a flat fee.

vitriol · Sep 23, 2009, 21:41:49

I loved playing it, my dad went from Competent to Deadly in one night!!!

Took me 6 months to get from Competent to Dangerous !! I swear he cheated.

There is a reverse engineered version here, it's pretty good too.

Link fixed - Simon.

john · Sep 23, 2009, 22:10:45

I think that was the only game I bought for myself and I quickly got very good at it and got Elite status (through practice and being rather unscrupulous in what I goods I traded).

I beleive there was a prize for the first person to become 'Elite'.

Although I soon acquired a docking computer I often practised docking without it. I've still go the original version and the BBC computer in the loft.

I'll have to have a go again, thanks for the Link Kinmel and

zappaDPJ · Sep 28, 2009, 23:18:30

Quote from: kinmel on Sep 22, 2009, 21:29:31
It is hard to imagine anything running in 96k now, we spent hours trading. Happy days.

Elite on the BBC actually had a lot less memory than that to run in which was one of the things that made it so amazing. The BBC model B had 32K of RAM of which 10K was mapped to the screen and a further 3K was lost to the system which left around 19K for the entire program. One of the things that made Elite special was that the Authors, Braben and Bell wrote a bespoke split screen mode which allowed them to not only display 6 colours (including black) instead of 4 but it also allowed them to steal a little memory back by reducing the size of the visual display.

Happy days indeed

D-Dan · Sep 29, 2009, 22:30:27

I spent hours and hours playing the follow up - Frontier - on my Amiga. I loved the classical music soundtrack, and finding those hidden gems on various planets. Wolf 359 was a pain though - full of marauding bandits.

Steve

Niall · Sep 30, 2009, 13:48:39

Quote from: zappaDPJ on Sep 22, 2009, 15:56:14
A great trip down (32K) memory lane!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8266017.stm

I've just watched a programme about this on the History (+1) channel. They actually said that it was 18k as it was on the BBC (presumably model A) which they upgraded to 22k.

zappaDPJ · Sep 30, 2009, 14:45:59

The BBC model A only had 16K of RAM of which 10K was mapped to the screen and a further 3K reserved for the system leaving a massive 3K for programs so it wouldn't have run on a Model A. I believe there was a graphically stripped down version for the Electron though. The upgraded 22K memory used by Braben and Bell came from the 19K user memory plus an additional 3K which they took from the screen mapped memory after writing their own screen mode/driver.

Niall · Sep 30, 2009, 15:21:22

Although that sounds right, that's not what they said on the interview/documentary.

netn00b · Dec 23, 2009, 13:14:04

Quote from: gizmo71 on Sep 22, 2009, 16:56:36
It owes everything to Star Raiders.

I had that on the Atari VCS with the additional 'pad' used to do some commands...circa 1980/1 ?

Elite though was amazing on the C64 a few years later....

Noreen · Dec 24, 2009, 11:20:52

Only just read this thread, I used to play "Elite" and loved it.

Rik · Dec 24, 2009, 11:29:09

The days of our youth, eh?

Noreen · Dec 24, 2009, 12:06:41

I loved "Lords of Midnight" even more.

Rik · Dec 24, 2009, 12:07:23

Never heard of that one, I wasn't much of a gamer.

Noreen · Dec 24, 2009, 12:29:07

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lords_of_Midnight

Rik · Dec 24, 2009, 12:31:29

When that came out, I was busy writing a game for Acorn.

Inkblot · Jan 02, 2010, 22:50:56

Elite was the first 'big' game for me - spent ~~hours and hours~~ months playing it, I even glued my joystick to the desk as the rubber feet kept losing suction at the wrong time! These days I can manage an hour of gaming before I get bored but back then I used to work 8 hours, Elite 8 hours and sleep 6 hours with the other 2 being spent eating and travelling! Well, I was young(er) and single at the time!