The Story of Elite: A Space Opera | Kim Justice

And that's how the right-wing people are! No wonder that in the libertarian-spirited Elite you could easily buy and sell people or drugs, which, while technically illegal, would make your character richer and set him on the path to the Elite status, which was the real reward for being untrustworthy, as opposed to illusory punishment of being labeled "criminal" by non-existent people of non-existent galaxy...

Elite!

Only just found this. A long (long) time ago, I was working on an unofficial Gameboy port of Elite (with the intention of finding a publisher). Unfortunately, that last bit didn't happen. We had the whole thing running at 10 FPS and the whole of the HUD worked as expected, but hey, it's a Gameboy doing 3D, with an entire universe in a cartridge. We even had a toggle to invert the screen colours to extend battery life.

Played the original BBC B version for months. First taste of complete game addiction.

That's wonderful, many thanks

Docking computer, only worth it for Blue Danube. In reality, manual docking was the only way to go.

Rest in peace, Sophia.

Sophia sounds like a middle age guy. I'm bit surprised lol

It's rarely mentioned that not only the docking comes from the 2001 movie, but also the Harmless, mostly harmless, dangerous etc. references come from the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy books by Douglas Adams.

Really well researched and put together. I've only ever played Frontier Elite II, I got it back in the 90s on my Amiga 500 and I've gone back to it so many times. I'm a Mac guy now, but I keep an old laptop PC so I can play Frontier Elite every now and again.

Just found this. Very good documentary. Cheers.

I loved Firstenc, despite the bugs, it was still my favorite game.

My biggest problem with Elite was how once I made the rank of deadly all the pirates in the Anarchy systems virtually disappeared. Then you make a jump into one Anarchy system in you are surrounded by a dozen hostile ships. So you reload equip a couple of bombs to deal with the mob and jump to the same system and you cannot find a single pirate to shoot. That is why I never made Elite because I spent about 1000 hours at deadly couldn't find enough pirates to shoot to get to the required number. But I still have very fond memories of the game and often refer to home amazing it was that they were able to produce a true 3D combat game with only 64k of memory or less. It appears that the original release ran on a computer with only 48k of memory. The Programmers today I don't think would be capable of that achievement no matter how much time you gave them. I don't think they have the patience or problem solving skills and the Universities spend more time filling their heads with the proper world view than they do on critical thinking. I think most Universities now actually put pressure on students not to think critically. If you write a paper that challenges the accepted political view it doesn't matter how thorough your research is your grade will suffer. On the contrary you can write a paper in a couple of hours that checks all the write boxes with all the acceptable views and be woefully lacking on depth of research and get Max points. Higher education no longer teaches how to use knowledge and reason as tools to solve problems. This is why Western Civilization is in decline because we have allowed the institutions of Higher Learning to Dictate what are acceptable and unacceptable world views! In other words we have been living in a cultural dictatorship for the last 30 years and failed to see how that could threaten a true democratic society!

After 39 years, having enjoyed Elite on my Electron, CPC and PC (particularly MP's "TheNewKind") I am once again bouncing around the galaxies in Oolite and having a blast! I am an Elite:Dangerous founder and keep my version updated but for me, the relative simplicity of the original Elite, together with Oolite's expansions, mean I truly believe I'm flying around in Rob Holdstock's elegantly painted universe. Right On.

Kim, you like code and game, what a brilliant Dichotomy . Then again, just a Marketer here. No worse, sold something. Zzz. Meanwhile in the non-normal gaming world. Never be someone, son writing code. You shoulders. They were right physically. :(

2MZ, 32K. Opps.

Perhaps was first 3D Porn. :) Fitted in 48Kb too.Must just be the maths, code. zzz. Now we can't fit an OS in less than 15GB. :)I would Patreon you, but, my life, now about $1 to million poor buy. So I will share where I can. In the meantime your advantage lived in U.K. Zzz. Sound like a Radio person. Whom ever played all those planets, and then Dredgers, etc. Like so much we are sold. Did it?

We did what we did. Versus $.

Played this on the Acorn Electron and later on the Atari ST. My bedroom was the spaceship, my tv was the cockpit window, and I used to imagine all the stuff that went on in the space station.

Let's not forget the game that inspired Elite - Star Raiders on the Atari.

I had it first on the 48k ZX Spectrum. then my C64 and the A1200

The balls of these guys to even attempt such a thing

Very enjoyable documentary. When I played the Spectrum version of Elite it was tough to say which was the toughest task: docking manually in game or getting the ridiculous Lenslok anti piracy system to work and unlock the game to play. Have played most versions but surprised to see a version for NES in there. My first memory (encounter) with Elite was someone at school bragging about their rating as they owned an Electron and a copy of the game. Must have been 1984 or 85. So long ago now but happy days.

The joke in Elite about you learning to properly dock consistently is that once you finally master that, you have enough funds to buy a docking computer and then you never have to do it again! lol What a cruel joke! :-)

I always point to Elite when showing innovative zen programming. It is a true masterpiece and far ahead of its time. I played the C64 version first and put in WAY too many hours into it. I never got to Elite, but I did get to Deadly, Kudos to those who did it all the way... and how the heck did ANYONE get it in five weeks?!! Did they not sleep?! lol

The best part was when you were done for the day and had to save your progress separately to 5 different cassettes, cus it was the only way to almost guarantee a save that would load without read errors, or crashing the game.

What a great video. The Amiga version is also "my" Elite.

Great documentary, Kim.

Oh yeah, military lasers all round. This takes me back! I remember my dad walking through the door with a BBC Micro, Cumana 40/80 track disk drive and Microvitec monitor. My mum went mad. He just said "shut up, he needs to learn this stuff, it's the future". How right he was.

I played original Commodore 64 tape version. And I was only 18 ? I think. Back b4 everything computer style. It was amazing. And the Imagination stimulus was incredible. You don’t get that now. Great game.

Cheers for this Kim.

I tracked down the novela that came with this: "Dark Wheel" - and its a great little read.

Im now going to play it for the first time, tomorrow, on my Amiga.

Thanks as always, Kim. Your videos help me to relax and to train my mind on sonething that I love.

Comprehensive! I had this on my 48k Spectrum. Amazing how they managed to program this with such limitations. An incredible game.

I would like to play Elite Two frontier but I don't have an Amiga. Does anyone know the better way to play Via an emulator ?

I remember the Stanley Baxter advert! He's still alive, 98 years old!!

I made 'Elite' in eary '85. Got a badge but lost it decades ago

<pigeons><cat>The best and most brutal version of Elite was, and still is, Eve Online!</cat></pigeons>

I'm playing Elite on the Vectrex in 2025!

I found some crazy unidentified huge ships so not sure what they were ??!?’

Do Exile next its fascinating too

i think i have this game =/\=

Wonderful video thank you <3 I really enjoyed learning more about the history of Elite

That Vector Graphics Tank Battle is like a game I saw displayed on an Oscilloscope at a place that is off limit to the general public.

Would have been a better game if programmed for the Acorn Archimedes.

"Sophia"

Ive still got my original 1983 BBC model B.
It still works along with the official BBC analogue joysticks, disk drive etc.
A whole bunch of games, inc Elite.