Oolite Bulletins

Hi Svampen, SteveKing, EvoMayhem, and all!

Hi everyone,

Most addictive game I ever played on the old C64 & later the C128. Tried the Amiga version - disappointing! Found Oolite a couple weeks ago & I'm hooked again. Couldn't remember the status I gained in Elite, so fired up my old C128. It has been boxed up & sitting in a closet for over 20 years. To my surprise, the computer booted right up, but I'm unable to load Elite. I have the original disk with the lens-lock protection and a disk where the copy protection has been removed. I can load the directory of both disks, but unable to load Elite. I think I have just forgotten how to operate the C64!! Anyone still have an old Commodore running that could help me out?? Probably need to post this in discussion forum.

Hi Holmes177, and welcome!

Typically, you would run to start a game from floppy disk (at least on the C=64), followed by

Hi Holmes177, welcome to the Board.

Holmes177 wrote:

Hi everyone,

Most addictive game I ever played on the old C64 & later the C128. Tried the Amiga version - disappointing! Found Oolite a couple weeks ago & I'm hooked again. Couldn't remember the status I gained in Elite, so fired up my old C128. It has been boxed up & sitting in a closet for over 20 years. To my surprise, the computer booted right up, but I'm unable to load Elite. I have the original disk with the lens-lock protection and a disk where the copy protection has been removed. I can load the directory of both disks, but unable to load Elite. I think I have just forgotten how to operate the C64!! Anyone still have an old Commodore running that could help me out?? Probably need to post this in discussion forum.

Hi Holmes,

first of all: Wellcome! Good another former C64 user found his way here......

Could it be, that your discs simply demagnetised? As far as I remember these old disks had a certain expiration date......and they were quite sensitive regarding the storage conditions......my mother stored my old c64 stuff in an old draughty cellar fortunately there are emulators......

Greez Sarr

G'day Holmes, and welcome aboard!

Good luck with your old Elite disks. (back in the day, I bought a C64 mostly to play Elite!)

Thanks all for the replies. I just think my old 1541 disk drive has problems. It will sometimes load the directory of a disk, but cannot get it to load a program. Man, this 1541 is huge, it weighs more than a complete, modern desktop tower!!
It was mechanically configured to be device 9, back when I had dual drives, but should still work as a single drive as long as I address it as device 9, correct? Looked on Ebay & they are asking exorbitant prices for 1571 drives. Hard to believe, as I'm sure that hundreds of these 1541's & 1571's were thrown in the trash.
I may just have to be content playing Oolite, which is, of course, way more advanced than C64 Elite.

Head alignment problems, perhaps.. they always were buggers for that. (And overheating. I opened mine up and fitted a cooling fan into it, as well as a switch to flip between drive 8 and 9. Another useful tip is to get 4 eraser-tipped pencils, cut the eraser ends to 5-6cm long, and insert them as "legs" into the four screw-holes in the underside. The increase in air flow helped a lot.)

Some googling around should turn up tutorials on how to realign the heads.

Holmes177 wrote:

It was mechanically configured to be device 9, back when I had dual drives, but should still work as a single drive as long as I address it as device 9, correct?

Correct.

Holmes177 wrote:

I may just have to be content playing Oolite, which is, of course, way more advanced than C64 Elite.

For a trip down memory lane you could always grab a C64 emulator and legally download the Elite disk image from Ian Bell's website.

Stardate 29/04/2014. Who..Are..These strange...Beings?

Hello all

I played Elite back in 1984 (I think) On my trusty BBC Electron. Hours of my life were spent battling, selling/buying and dying and never leaving the Diso/Lave area. So deeply immersed that I could Identify approaching ships at long range when said ships consisted of a globular cluster of pixels a few mm in size. Sadly it all came to an end when my computer developed acute hearing loss and couldn't load the game.

I saw it briefly, again, in the 1990's at microprose on an amiga, I think, with solid graphics!

Now I find Oolite/Elite and have been having a blast. Currently I have it on an Asus eepc901HD with mint13. It runs pretty well with minimal issues. I did have it on my toshiba equium first but that has developed a terminal hardware fault

But I also have it on my PC running Ubuntu 12.04. Which runs even better of course and it can handle the BGS.oxp for that extra eye candy.

Hats off to the guys who kept this game alive and I hope eveonline and other such variants appreciate where they started.

BBD Currently tracking the Constrictor......

Hi Bangbangduck, welcome to the boards! If you can find a friendlier bb this side of Riedquat, we'll refund the difference. Happy hunting!

Hi, Bangbangduck. Good to have you aboard

G'day Bangbangduck, and welcome aboard!

Hello to Everyone , I'm Doug Stuart and my story's the same as many of you, I built my first ZX81,(too long ago to remember) then
the Sinclair 2068 , then went to the C64 and found Elite! I was hooked, then Amiga 500's and still a Elite addict.
After along time went PC but still craved my elite so I got "Clonto" Emulator and was "back in the Black" ( Firefly reference ).
When I found "Elite-TNK" I fell in love even deeper ( faster speed and shading!) , then a flood killed my PC and by the time I
got a new one "Elite-TNK" was pulled and I didn't save the ZIP files!!! , I was lost...
Praise to the powers that be that I not only found Oolite ,( 10X times better than TNK) but that there is a GALAXY of players,
fans and programmers playing and expanding this all new "VERSE" ( again, Firefly ). I want to THANK YOU ALL !!!
and one more Firefly quote, "NOTHING IN THE VERSE CAN STOP US"

Hi Doug – damn straight! Welcome to the boards!