Oolite Bulletins

Looking forward to the bedpans and blanket baths then?

Acorn Electron,

on a 5,5 inch floppy. in glorious wireframe

I first played elite on the tatung einstein, the version was pretty much the same as spectrum elite.

Originally it was soley my dads game, but me and my younger brother got our hands on it eventually, we played it together with me handling the joystick and combat and him acting as co-pilot handling the keyboard, adjusting speeds targetting missiles hyperspace etc etc

Ive been waiting for elite 4 for a long time, and using allsorts of odd versions of elite, and emulators whilst waiting, only just discovered oolite... oh and introduced my dad to this version

Damn you're all old.

I've encountered Elite on my C64 for the first time - but that was in 1992. I wans't really interested in the game, I preferred buggy boy, giana sisters and every other game where you drove cars or flew planes. But more then games I've enjoyed programming (in BASIC, that is) of games. My parents offered me a 386 for making a vocbulary training program with some special features. I made it and got my PC in 1994, it was a 386DX-25 with 8 megs of RAM. The next major breakthrough was installing windows 95 and making it stable(!), although the requirements said 486DX. Well, it took almost exactly 15 minutes to boot, but that wasn't the point - having windows 95 was.

I've read about FFE in a magazine (I think it was called a crossplatform magazine called playtime) and found it quite interesting, so I made my parents buy it for me for christmas. A year later I made them buy M.A.X. btw.

And so FFE became the first Elite title I've played for quite some time. I really liked the range of handbooks you've got along with the game CD. They added alot to the flair. Having some background information and comments on the space ships was nice. I still remember the comments on the shuttle without having to look it up, it was like 'HAHAHAHAHAHAHA [...] enough said'.
And although the videos were quite crappy they somehow made it look at bit more crowded, a bit more real.

I've discovered Oolite some months ago but I've ignored it then. Whilst sorting some old favourite links I've again stumpled upon Oolite and this time gave it a try. I quite like the simplicity while still being in a somewhat familiar environment.

Hi polyh. Old is a state of mind, I stopped getting old in 1988 when I was 17, which is why I still prefer The Wonder Stuff and Ned's Atomic Dustbin to this modern tosh, the Nissan 200SX (S13 - flip up headlight version) is still my favourite car (and I owned one for 4 years - although I had to wait until I was 30 to afford the insurance), it's why Max Headroom is probably the best show ever made, why the C64 was the best computer I've ever owned (and still own) and why Elite and now oolite is the best game ever...

If we're really gonna get old school, lets raise an old old debate - i agree with everything Daddyhoggy said, except the Spectrum was Clearly a better 'puter than the C64...

I also agree with everything that DaddyHoggy said. In 1984, I had a Spectrum 48K and I loved it dearly. I also used to have those Spectrum vs. Beeb vs. C64 arguments with my mates in the schoolyard.

But looking back, I'm not so sure. The Spectrum sold a lot of units because it was built down to a price - and it showed, especially when you played "Atic Atak" or "Underwurlde" complete with colour-bleed graphics.

There are some videos on YouTube that show the games we used to play in the 80s, and when compared with the videos of the Beeb and the C64, the Spectrum doesn't fare too well.

Who needs YouTube for the speccie retro experience?

Thank you Thargoid. I still go all gooey at the sight of that little rubber-keyed machine...

@JB - I quite liked the speccy - although the thumb, finger, nose, big toe multiple keypresses required to program it used to drive me potty on the old rubber keyboard. My cousin had one and I spent many a happy hour playing 3D Starstrike - which I thought was fantastic - because my favourite arcade machine was (and still is) the sit-down version of the Star Wars game (I tried to buy one a few years ago but the guy wanted £8000 for it!).

Anyway, my "very happy with my C64" status was firmed up when both me and my cousin got Daley Thompson's Decathlon for our respective machines - mine in glorious 16 colour, 3 channel audio and his erm, in black and white, squeeky-bleepy audio

Those really were the days!

DaddyHoggy wrote:

@JB - I quite liked the speccy - although the thumb, finger, nose, big toe multiple keypresses required to program it used to drive me potty on the old rubber keyboard.

Yep, I know all about that one!

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Anyway, my "very happy with my C64" status was firmed up when both me and my cousin got Daley Thompson's Decathlon for our respective machines - mine in glorious 16 colour, 3 channel audio and his erm, in black and white, squeeky-bleepy audio

Just to illustrate the point:
Beach-Head on the Spectrum
Beach-Head on the C64

@JB - can't see 'em.

To anybody else - anybody know how to make Youtube videos play in Firefox under Ubuntu? I used to have some 3rd party plug-in when I had 7.04 (Fiesty Fawn), but I can't remember what it was and/or find it again since I rebuilt my machine using 7.10 Gutsy.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

@JB - can't see 'em.

I've tried to find some static screen grabs for comparison, but without much luck. But I did find an interview with a guy who has written a full colour book devoted to the C64. Thought you might be interested!

Add another vote for C64, or rather C128 running in C64 mode.
A few days after getting the machine set up, I had Elite running on it and an aftermarket Atari joystick plugged in. I played Elite every waking chance I got, rarely ran anything else on the Commodore.

So for me, Oolite is a much upgraded blast from the past. Thank you again, Giles.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

@JB - can't see 'em.

To anybody else - anybody know how to make Youtube videos play in Firefox under Ubuntu? I used to have some 3rd party plug-in when I had 7.04 (Fiesty Fawn), but I can't remember what it was and/or find it again since I rebuilt my machine using 7.10 Gutsy.

You'll need the Flash plugin. For that, google for the Medibuntu site.