Documentation Included with First Versions of Oolite

[user2357]

For a recent impression of ArcElite I can recommend Drew Wagar's youtube miniseries, if you haven't seen it.

His desire to complete the final "Zartid" mission grows obsessive in the final episode and the game still keeps slaughtering him, making him even more possessed. I'll say the end is laugh out loud funny, which is a little unusual for a genX gaming stream

Yeah. That was a good one. I enjoyed that stream. It was very frustrating.

However, I do think Drew should perhaps have spent some more time reading the manual, user guide and the development notes that eventually surfaced:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051111081 ... /elite.zip Docs/Manual folder
https://web.archive.org/web/20060212053 ... /notes.zip

Christian Pinder did a Windows port, which might have been a bit simpler to run after Drew had demonstrated the initial emulation.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240509182 ... fbdfe00e7c

...but foresight is blind, and hindsight 20/20.

[Old Murgh]

However, I do think Drew should perhaps have spent some more time reading the manual, user guide and the development notes that eventually

You're right, that should have helped him some. Nice sources there.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240509182 ... fbdfe00e7c

And this one is great, hadn't seen it before.
Are you sitting on more old treasure?

Yeah. That was a good one. I enjoyed that stream. It was very frustrating.

I have full sympathy for him though, after all that repeated effort and getting rammed like that, in the end claiming a draw.

[user2357]

Are you sitting on more old treasure?

I have combed the interwebz far and wide, deep into the search pages, and I have collected various digital versions of the original manuals. The only ones I haven't been able to find yet are the 1986 Superior Software BBC 2nd ed. manual, the 1987 Tatung Einstein manual, the 1987 CGA PC Elite (not 1991 Elite Plus), the 1988 Atari ST/Commodore Amiga US Rainbird-version, and the 1996 SAM Coupé manual.

However, Steve, from frontierastro.co.uk, has confirmed from his fantastic collection that the Einstein manual is essentially a straight copy of the 1985 ZX Spectrum manual, right down to the copyright info on the title-page verso (except for a sticker on p. 7 that covers up the Spectrum loading instructions, giving the Einstein loading instructions instead).

I also have it on other, good, general-interwebz authority, from multiple sources, that the SAM manual is essentially the 1985 Amstrad CPC manual again. Exactly to which extent SAM copies CPC, I have not yet been able to discover, but apparently computinghistory.org.uk still has a physical copy of SAM, and I hope to contact them some time in the future with some questions as to the detail of said manual. ...I just need to get my questions all in order first, because, you can ask Steve, I have a LOT of them.

So... If anybody just so happens, in all their travels across the interwebz, to stumble upon an electronic copy of the BBC 2nd ed., Einstein, PC Elite, US Rainbird Atari/Amiga, and/or SAM manuals... you know where to reach me. ...And if anybody would like some links to any other manual that I discovered so far... you know where to reach me. To the best of my ability I have ensured that each one has been preserved at the Internet Archive.

*

Last observation regarding ArcElite... It's a horrible game!

There are claims out there on the webz that ArcElite is "arguably" (IIRC that is the exact word they use) the best version of the original Elite. Well... based on Drew's streaming evidence, I will argue very hard that it is actually, in fact, NOT.

I have (1) read the "I wrote that" interview with Clive Gringras (I forget now in which publication that was again; I can find you the link, if you want) and (2) I have looked at the file-property dates in the 1995 magazine cover-disc version (I can look up that magazine also), and (3) I have considered the development dates stated in the ArcElite User Guide, and based on an estimated development/publication chronology -- and upon Drew's experience! -- it does not seem as if much ArcElite play-testing had been done, if any at all.

It's a horrible game!

(edited to include mention of the US Rainbird Atari/Amiga manual)