Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 3:21 pm**

Just found Oolite and am - after nearly 25 years - playing Elite again. Amazing effort from the developers and my eternal gratitude as I am old enough to know deep down that nothing has bettered the BBC Micro and Elite.

Now, if you could just get started on JetPacs for the Spectrum and Revs+ for the C64.....

Oh and, make them available on a cassette tape?

PS. If someone could force Curry's to start selling Murphy cassette players again?

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 3:41 pm**

Welcome to the Friendliest Board this side of Riedquat OldEliteist.

Ah, Revs on the C64, Until this year the Silverstone track would still have been spot on correct too! I still have my C64, my paddles from my Atari 2600 and yes, even Revs (on cassette)

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 3:55 pm**

Games like Jetpac and Revs can easily be emulated on a PC, of course.
Strange though, only Elite really stands the test of 25 years IMHO

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:08 pm**

Steve wrote:
Games like Jetpac and Revs can easily be emulated on a PC, of course.
Strange though, only Elite really stands the test of 25 years IMHO

Not just Elite actually - although you're right - it has stood the test of time - one of my favourite "thinking" games - was "The Sentinel" (sort of 3D chess where the pieces absorbed each other) is probably still one of the few games I still get my C64 out for (Elite just takes too long to load on the original C64 cassette version).

Now if that was available in PC format I'd definitely be interested.

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:09 pm**

Ah-ha! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sentin ... eo_game%29 was by Geoff Crammond - that's why I liked it so much (same as Revs!)

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:13 pm**

You might be able to get Sentry to work on a modern PC: http://eicart.free.fr/sentry/

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:27 pm**

And I've just found a PC clone called "Zenith" (http://johnvalentine.co.uk/index.php?art=downloads) so that's my life over then...

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:28 pm**

DaddyHoggy wrote:
Not just Elite actually - although you're right - it has stood the test of time

Sorry, meant out of those three games (Elite, Jetpac and Revs). The other two were brilliant in their day though. In particular I spent a lot of time haring round Silverstone in Revs. These days Grand Prix 4 gets the job done (another Geoff Crammond game).

Never owned a Speccy so I only got to play Jetpac round a friend's.

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:29 pm**

Cmdr James wrote:
You might be able to get Sentry to work on a modern PC: http://eicart.free.fr/sentry/

Oh, good find - I've got a P133 laptop just begging to be given this to run!

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:40 pm**

Ok, if we're going to get into this, how about the version of BattleZone released for the PC in the mid nineties? I'm beginning to understand where my youth disappeared and why I lived on jam on toast and pizza for most of my 20's.

Not that things have improved mark you.

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:45 pm**

For the sake of full disclosure i should also mention that I owned (in fact still own) and Texas Instruments TI/994A and Defender (on cartridge!!!)

£45 from a shop going out of business.

I also spend too much time identifying (and telling the increasingly numb Mrs. Davies about) the computers in the background of The IT Crowd.

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:54 pm**

OldEliteist wrote:
I also spend too much time identifying (and telling the increasingly numb Mrs. Davies about) the computers in the background of The IT Crowd.

Not just me then!

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:57 pm**

'Fraid not. I once tried to impress my friends by pointing out that a keyboard in "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" was actually a Commodore Vic-20. Soon I had no friends and could dedicate my entire time to cataloging all such happenings...

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 5:00 pm**

This may be a bit of a cheek but I just did a search on Google and found a completely unrelated post I made on a Linux forum 15 years ago. With this in mind I'd like to list here the computers I was lucky enough to own (briefly in some cases) during the golden years of IT. I do this on the off chance I take a break from Oolite 15 years in the future and do a similar search:

Sinclair ZX80 + 16k RAM expansion
Sinclair Spectrum 16K + that weird thermal printer
Texas Instruments TI99-4A (the only old computer I still have)
Commodore 8096
Commodore 64
BBC Micro 48K
Amstrad PCW 8256 (for writing letters you know)
Commodore Amiga 500
Commodore Amiga 1200 + 80MB(!) hard disk

Dreamed of an Acorn Archimedes

In 95 moved on to PC's and now Macs. Have been looking back through rose tinted glasses ever since.

Posted: **Sat Jul 10, 2010 5:12 pm**

DaddyHoggy wrote:
one of my favourite "thinking" games - was "The Sentinel"

Now if that was available in PC format I'd definitely be interested.

OMG, that game was incredible! Also procedurally generated (in order to fir in the C64's memory). Yes< i would also love to play that one again - though I seem to recall checking out a (possibly emulated?) version not too long ago (by which I mean in the past year or so.) Hmmm...

[goes to Google...]
From Wikipedia: "Graphically, the best version is the PC port, capable of VGA graphics and incremental lighting."
[goes back to Google]

Alright, try this link (I haven't visited it yet) - apparently it's a remake for Windows:
http://johnvalentine.co.uk/zenith

This era of games also reminds me of one that has stuck in my mind. It was called Mercenary, first-person wireframe-3D game, in and out of aircraft, groundcars, and maze-like installations on foot...