Oolite Bulletins

While technically I've "played" Elite on a BBC Model B back around 1986 or thereabouts, neither the game or the machine were mine (they were owned by the family I was boarding with when I left home for my first job) so it was only on a few occasions I was able to play it. The main experience I had was crashing into the damn station - never actually got a single kill!

I owned a C64 for a number of years, but never managed to get hold of Elite for it.

I was 13 in 1984 when Elite first appeared. I remember seeing it on a BBC B and having to wait months before it was ported to the humble Spectrum.

Interesting to compare the 8 bitversions actually. The Spectrum had no dedicated sprite graphics hardware like the C64, but it had a big advantage over the BBC and the C64 when it came to Elite and vector graphics in general; much more available RAM and a dramatically higher CPU clock speed. 3.5 Mhz (Spectrum), played 2Mhz (BBC) and a mere 0.98 Mhz (C64). Minimal use of colour of course, given its other limitations.

Look at the Spectrum version and you can see the framerate is far quicker and the graphics are virtually flicker free unlike the other versions. There were a lot of missions in there too. Supernovas, Cloaking Devices, Thargoid invasions. Pretty impressive for what was a humble machine.

Most of the ships were represented too, I think the only one conspicuous by its absence was the Constrictor, for some reason that mission wasn't coded on the Spectrum. I can definitely remember Boas, Adders, Cobras, Sidewinders, Kraits, Mambas, Pythons and, of course, Thargoids. There were even asteroids and rock hermits.

All 8 charts were represented, though the outline of the planet wasn't done in the same way as the BBC. Suns had flickery edges though.

I genuinely got to Elite on that version after playing for over a year. Fond memories. I found Oolite in 2006, then I started writing some stuff...

Cheers,

Drew.

drew wrote:

I was 13 in 1984 when Elite first appeared. I remember seeing it on a BBC B and having to wait months before it was ported to the humble Spectrum.

For someone of my generation, it's hard to imagine having a home computer/games etc when thirteen.
At that age, I was hardly ever in the house. There was football to play, girls to chase, mischief to find - ahh, yes...

drew wrote:

Look at the Spectrum version and you can see the framerate is far quicker and the graphics are virtually flicker free unlike the other versions. There were a lot of missions in there too. Supernovas, Cloaking Devices, Thargoid invasions. Pretty impressive for what was a humble machine.

Most of the ships were represented too, I think the only one conspicuous by its absence was the Constrictor, for some reason that mission wasn't coded on the Spectrum. I can definitely remember Boas, Adders, Cobras, Sidewinders, Kraits, Mambas, Pythons and, of course, Thargoids. There were even asteroids and rock hermits.

The first time I saw Elite was on a friend's BBC B, in 1984 when I was 16. You're definitely right about the superior graphics on the Spectrum: the C64 in particular I remember as being very flickery. BBC and C64 explosions were I think monochrome but particulate; the Spectrum went for red circular flashes. I don't recall seeing Boas (or Anacondas, for that matter) on the Spectrum, but I could be wrong ... I do remember though that there was an either/or approach to Kraits and Adders: some games you got Kraits, some games you got Adders, never both. And I think the Spectrum version used the printer bus for extra memory ...

drew wrote:

Most of the ships were represented too, I think the only one conspicuous by its absence was the Constrictor, for some reason that mission wasn't coded on the Spectrum. I can definitely remember Boas, Adders, Cobras, Sidewinders, Kraits, Mambas, Pythons and, of course, Thargoids. There were even asteroids and rock hermits.

Really?

I started on the Spectrum and I don't think I ever saw an Adder or a Boa, or even a Mamba...
Kraits and Sidewinders by the score; Cobra IIIs (never saw a Cobra I); Fer-de-lance (love the 'windows' on that thing); Asps; Pythons; Thargoids; Vipers (maybe...) but no other ships... I dreamed of finding an Adder

Never worked out the trick of telling the difference between an asteroid and a rock hermit (until I'd shot at it )

I actually preferred the Speccy graphics to those of the more powerful machines (with regards to Elite anyway...); filling in all those blank spaces with colour sort of killed my imagination...

I also remember a few planets where I'd have to trawl round to the other side to find the station (with all sorts being imagined in my head as the planet loomed large in my side view...)

drew wrote:

All 8 charts were represented, though the outline of the planet wasn't done in the same way as the BBC. Suns had flickery edges though.

I didn't like the 'BBC' way. It showed the planet was rotating but wasn't worth the trade off to me.
However I DID like the flickery suns on the Spectrum. Sure, it may have been because of graphical limitations on the machine but I thought it looked cool hot

I enjoyed reading that, thanks Drew! I must try one of your novels sometime

Disembodied wrote:

I don't recall seeing Boas (or Anacondas, for that matter) on the Spectrum, but I could be wrong ...

I think you're right there Disembodied. Never saw transporters, shuttles or worms either. Maybe we were visiting the wrong systems

I played both the Beeb and Spectrum versions. I disagree about the graphics being better on the Spectrum. They were a lot slower than on the Beeb. Plus the view screen was smaller on the Spectrum, I preferred the square view screen on the Beeb.

EDIT: Just read Drew's comments. Yes the Speccy had a bit more memory than the Beeb and slightly higher refresh rate, but Elite on my Spectrum had graphics slowdowns and flickered a lot. Beeb graphics were smooooth.

I played Elite on a BBC B.

Bought Elite in W.H. Smith's, I could not believe how good it was:), this was 1984!

Anyway I eventually got my "Elite" badge/button from Acorn.

The protection on the floppy disk was even more interesting ;P
I spent £2000 on double density drives to see how it worked.

Cody wrote:

drew wrote:

I was 13 in 1984 when Elite first appeared. I remember seeing it on a BBC B and having to wait months before it was ported to the humble Spectrum.

For someone of my generation, it's hard to imagine having a home computer/games etc when thirteen.
At that age, I was hardly ever in the house. There was football to play, girls to chase, mischief to find - ahh, yes...

When I was 13 the very first electronic calculator was made; not that I had use of one. And, Messrs Jobs and Wozniak's first home computer was still more than 15 years in the future.

I played Elite on a Commodore 64. Yes, it was slow and the screen flickered, but back then I did not give it a second thought. The reason it flickered was because it utilized two banks of video memory. While one was displayed, the other was being drawn. The game constantly changed pointers to video memory, but using machine language it happened relatively quickly. Those 8 bit computers of that time were exploratory steps for programmers of the day to use every available bit of memory and every trick and shortcut they could find. They wrote the book on programming. I knew the addresses of video memory on my C64, and would stop the game to capture an Elite screen shot.

CaptSolo wrote:

When I was 13 the very first electronic calculator was made; not that I had use of one.

Aye, no electronic calculators in school - only a slipstick.

Cody wrote:

...no electronic calculators in school...

Indeed, I bought my first new-fangled electronic calculator when I went to college at 16. A Commodore SR7949. It cost a small fortune back then, but was good value, as 40+ years on it still works perfectly and has never been replaced.

<chortles> The first time I laid my hands on a scientific calculator, I was gobsmacked!
I have a twenty-five year-old Casio scientific that still functions perfectly.

Smivs wrote:

Cody wrote:

...no electronic calculators in school...

Indeed, I bought my first new-fangled electronic calculator when I went to college at 16. A Commodore SR7949. It cost a small fortune back then, but was good value, as 40+ years on it still works perfectly and has never been replaced.

Funny, the super advanced college calculators today still cost a small fortune, but you could probably get Elite running on them

Anyway, I never played the origional Elite, and had no idea what Elite was till about a year after I started playing Oolite...

I was Oolites youngest whippersnapper.

Cody wrote:

Aye, no electronic calculators in school - only a slipstick.

Cody wrote:

I have a twenty-five year-old Casio scientific that still functions perfectly.

Heh.. I wish I still had the slipsticks from my final year of high school.. I had 3.. a really nice 15 inch high-precision unit, a kinda strange looking but very useful 3-sided 12 inch one, and a 6 inch circular disc that I could tuck into a textbook.

Now, I'd probably be struggling to remember how to use them properly!

Diziet Sma wrote:

I'd probably be struggling to remember how to use them properly!

Heh... me too. I'd probably struggle with an abacus these days!