Oolite Bulletins

Cmdr James wrote:

I am 21 as well. We are talking hex right?

i am guessing 0x21 = 33 right? (i cheated and used google)

I first played Elite on my Spectrum - the "enhanced" Elite 128 version (which ran on my 48 despite the name). I was totally hooked, and played until I reached Elite.

Next was the PC version of Elite, which was the poorest, IMO - I got Elite in a week, the game was balanced very differently from the Spectrum one - I think the PC version was the one where you could shoot down missiles with little or no effort!

Next was Frontier on the Amiga - a great game despite its flaws. Loved the depth of it, hated the real world physics (did anyone ever reach a planet in a trinary system?). I played a bootleg of First Encounters on the PC for a while, but was unimpressed.

Finally, after a brush with Elite TNK a few years ago, I found Oolite shortly after getting a Mac. I've not played it for a while but now I've rediscovered it while on holiday in the US (it runs nicely on my '06 MacBook). I like the expandability and I'm hoping to try and build some OXPs for it in the future.

Hi Knightlie, and welcome to the boards! 8 out of 10 felines say it's the friendliest this side of Riedquat. If you've got any queries, this is the place to come. There's a pool of expertise here like you wouldn't believe... although I'm not even in the shallow end, myself. More still splashing about in the funny cold yellow pond with the dead verrucas and the curled-up sticking plaster.

Welcome Knightlie! Excellent, we like people who jump right in and write oxps!

I started with the 48k Speccy version of Elite, played that for years, think I reached Elite at least 4 times - I treated myself to a 180k disk drive and copied Elite onto a disk - 20 second loading time and no Lenslok to do your brain/eyes in!! I also thoroughly enjoyed Frontier on my Amiga, despite the game's idiosynchracies.

Disembodied wrote:

...splashing about in the funny cold yellow pond with the dead verrucas and the curled-up sticking plaster.

Now, that definitely comes under the heading of 'Too Much Information' ...

Humorously, I just dug out my first Firebird/Elite program box and it has the original receipt inside dated 3-17-86, for $31.19 including tax!

My first Elite was the C64 version. That Firebird box is packed with cool stuff! I think I used the threat recognition chart the most -- in the day, it was hanging right beside my computer setup. All the other stuff is here, including the infamous Lenslock Fresnel lens. Who thought that was a good idea? Everything else is mostly none the worse for the wear, although a few years ago I did pull the staples out to scan the manual.

C64/1541 disk loading was slow, and Lenslock was unreliable. It was easy to misread the letters three times in a row, forcing another reload at a snail's pace.

This was such a hassle that I used the C64 HESMON assembly language cartridge to edit the Lenslock protection out of my backup disk. For those C64 users who have lost their Lenslock, I still have those chicken scratchings written on my backup disk (appended onto the end, for those who wish to nurture their inner nerd).

Much later, I wrote a little program that allowed users to edit the variables in their save game files. This was fun and a little surprising, because just enumerating possible save values allowed me to discover a few things that I didn't know existed in the game (sorry, I don't recall what they were after all these years).

When I picked up the Amiga, I again bought Elite for that platform. Bell and Braben really put some thought into things -- they created a great game that you could always pick up whenever you had a few minutes to kill.

Yes, Elite brings on some fond memories...

In closing, I'd like to say thanks so much for bringing this into a modern framework so those of us who are old fogeys can wax nostalgic without the C1541 hammering and scatching up our ancient floppies!
------------------------------------------------------------
C64 Firebird Elite Lenslock Override
Track 18, Sector 18: 23 55.
0D03
7C: EA EA EA (note: EA is a No-Op which disables Lenslock code)
87: EA EA EA
0E0B
CB: 20 20 22 4F 4B 22 20 (note: this makes the Lenslock message say, "OK")
This should disable your C64 Firebird Elite Lenslock, in case you've lost it from your 30+ year old package.

Hi Harmless, welcome to the boards!

Thanks for the warm welcome, Disembodied!

On the topic of ancient computer flame wars (earlier in this thread), I always felt that it was great to have any of them.

Although I later got a C64, my roommate had a Speccy with an Instrument Flight Rules flight simulator on it. It was simple but totally faithful to the timelines and details of air navigation. We played that all the time. When we got to flight school, we were way ahead of our peers. Chalk one up for the Speccy!

Welcome aboard, Commander - from an old BBC Elite veteran!

Looks like I never voted or commented - first played on BBC B, first owned the game in the MS-DOS version on an old PC, tried Frontier and hated it then nothing until I came across Oolite.

No wonder, the thread lay dormant for 8 years

I started on a C64 for what it's worth.

I'm glad to have revived this thread. It's been a real pleasure reading through these several pages of origin stories

Thanks for keeping this repository alive!