I think one of the most amazing aspects of Elite is how little processing power it relied on to create such an involving, ground-breaking and wonderful game. 2MHz processors, <32KB RAM, and the horrors of cassette loaded games (what a revelation my first 80KB floppy disk drive was!)
When you compare it with the computing power we throw at games these days, and then read that a modern Email takes up more space than the entire game had to run in, it has been an extraordinary 25 years of development.
It's a terrible shame that B & B fell out, but I can't help put applaud the huge contribution they made to gaming in one stroke.
<monty_python_yorkshire_man>2MHz! Luxury! The 6510 in my C64 ran at 985KHz (PAL)!</monty_python_yorkshire_man>
I notice Ahruman has just reduced the memory requirement of ONE Flasher in Oolite from more memory available in a BBC B to a tiny fraction of it (but still HUGE compared to what they squeezed into Elite gen home computers)