Elite - 25yrs old...

Can't believe it's a quarter of a century since I held that 5.25" of pure gaming excellence in my grubby paws.
 
Haha cool, it's my parents' 25th wedding anniversary today. :p

Oh it was released yesterday, oh well. :p
 
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Remember it well. It was launched at the PCW Show at Olympia in London - I picked up my copy there on that day and still have it somewhere, boxed as new!
 
*21 Mining Laser Salute*

[I think it's the measure of a game that 25 years later, I can still remember the most cost-effective weapon in the game - 800 credits, or is my memory failing me?]

Oh, and while we're at it, let's have a flypast from the Red Polygons Viper display team, or something :D
 
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I'm still amazed how they got soooo much data (game code, stars and planets, plantary descriptions & trading markets etc) into 16K!!!!
 
It was a stunning piece of programming - I remember how they managed to switch video modes part-way through the video refresh cycle to have high-res monochrome for the space wire-frame stuff and lower-res colour for the status panel. The BBC article also talks about how it fit into 22K of memory - bonkers!

I remember it was launched on both cassette and floppy disk but, at the show, the disk version was in short supply with people hunting round for the few copies left whilst vendors had plenty of cassette versions available.

I think back on that as being present for a moment in computer history. I was also present at the launch of the Spectrum! :)
 
NeilFawcett said:
I'm still amazed how they got soooo much data (game code, stars and planets, plantary descriptions & trading markets etc) into 16K!!!!
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Whats funny is that the average modern game is 600,000 times 16k. But are they 600,000 times better gameplay than elite, or has it all become about shaders and bumpmaps.
 
you could argue X3 is just the same thing with modern gfx. personally i will not play any of these games until one comes along where you could land on all the planets too. And also not just about trading either.
 
Briton said:
I remember the feeling of relief at getting my first Docking Computer. Doesn't seem like a quarter of a century ago.
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This above lol my all time fav game ever :)

Still have 2 boxed copies mint with poster e.t.c and red lens lock for the spectrum :D dont ask me why i have 2 copies for lol i picked another one up could not resist.
 
best game ever... well deffinatly up there with them... didn't get my hands on it til 6 or so years later and it was still pretty revolutionary then - tho the version I played had colored ploygons, etc.
 
I prayed for the day I could afford the docking computer, The first game on a floppy for my new and rather expensive floppy drive for me :)
 
I had the cassette version on the BBC B (never could afford a disk drive). Lost myself for days on end playing it :D Did the same a few years later on with the Amiga version of Elite and then Frontier.
 
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Pf, docking computer is for wusses!
Played this on the electron back in 89-90 then picked up ArcElite a few years later. Epic game, certainly my all time favourite. I still have a blast on it now and again.

For the nerds among you, they made it fit into 16k by procedurally generating everything. They didn't have any databases or text files storing information on planets, it was all hard-coded into the game.
Still pretty mental. I miss the days when programmers had to write games to run on computers rather than people having to buy computers that run games, if that makes sense :D
 
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