Fancy reliving your misspent youth? The original Elite is free to download…

Not the same unless you have the potentiometer joystick

Any cheats so you can start with the docking computer?!

Anyone remember using the Lenslok prism to try and decipher the security check before being able to play?

Ah the days of squealing tapes and long load times (ZX Spectrum).

Could anyone actually dock on the spectrum version without cheating ?

There used to be a bug… erm “feature”… in the Amstrad CPC464 versions. Leave station, hyperspace, hit pause/save game, resume, and you’re in the destination station.
Makes it much easier doing trading runs with all the “naughty” products to get Credits up to a level where you can then play the game properly starting out with Military Lasers, Docking Computer, etc. 🙂

I lost a day playing Aviator recently.

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=39

Anyone remember using the Lenslok prism to try and decipher the security check before being able to play?

That was on the Speccy, not the Beeb (as far as I remember anyway). I never, ever got that damn thing to work. We ended up getting a cracked pirate copy of a game we’d actually bought in order to be able to play it.

I discovered years later that some copies had been sold with the wrong lock. Maybe that’s what happened to us, maybe it was just crap, who knows.

Another cheat in the BBC version was to repeatedly buy military lasers. If you recall, when you upgraded your lasers, the programm woudl credit you for the ones you were replacing. However since military lasers were the best you could buy, you couldn’t replace them. If however you repeatedly tried to buy them, the programme would not debit your credits abut it would credit you back the amount as if you had bought them.

Bah! Crashed as soon as I tried to hyperspace to Diso with my exciting cargo of Alloys.

I remember being in an Allders (sp?) department store in the 80’s and they had Elite running on a BBC Micro. Man,I wanted that game but I had a Commodo 64 and it wasn’t out yet!

I bought the Commodore version when it came out but I was on holiday in Newquay. I read that novella through a few times and couldn’t wait to get home and play it!!

Have got to Elite but have happy memories of playing it.

Got the sequel for my Amiga 1200 but I never got into it. The realistic flying physics was a pain in the rear and ruined it for me.

You need to take wine to Diso buy computers and take them back to Lave!!

Or was it the other way round?

I was persuaded to spring for the new PS4 version of Elite in the christmas sales. I’ve not started it yet but I’m expecting it to eat my life for a bit again when I do.

I do remember the Lenslok on the Spectrum version – Honestly never had any problems with it.

Hardcore trick was the mining laser. Really slow but packed quite a wallop. Military lasers were a lot more practical!

andytherocketeer I remember doing that on my Amstrad 128. I could occasionally actually dock it manually, but not very often so that cheat made things a lot easier till I . could afford a docking computer.

Or was it the other way round?

Dunno. I generally just bought drugs and slaves, got into a massive fight and died.

If you could all please buy something full price from that website that’d be great thanks.

Braben should never have been charging for it in the first place.

Ian Bell (co-writer that Braben had a falling out with), has offered it for free for decades an still does on his web site.

There are several versions available at BBC Games Archive, playable in a browser or downloadable images for emulators or real machines.

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/index.php?rt_R=&rt_B=&rt_M=&rt_P=&rt_U=&rt_W=&rt_L=&search=elite&on_T=on&sort=b

My only real claim to fame at school was being the first person to Elite level.

Though to be fair, my uncle had a hard drive for the Beeb and that meant you could have the military lasers (you couldn’t on the tape version).

You could have military lasers on bbc tape – I did.

I’ve been playing elite dangerous – very good but not without some glitches / issues but the scale and depth more than make up for it.

Any other ED players here?

I bought ED on the Xbox. I had two barriers to entry:

1) There’s no tutorial, just a string of YouTube videos.

2) When I went “bugger it, I’ll work it out,” I tried to take off and found the button for lasers before I found the button for thrust and got shot to ribbons by the space station’s internal defences. My inaugural flight was about two yards.

Haven’t been back to it since.

Lol. Can’t disagree but it’s great once you’ve worked out the basics.

Happy to explain – I’ve got the xbox version on the way as it goes…

FWIW there are tutorials on pc.

Used to play the original Elite with my brother, then we got a copy of Frontier and moved on to playing that.

Currently playing Elite Dangerous, actually been playing it just now. Only put 240 hours in to it over 3 years but I’m enjoying it. I only play in solo, never bother with open.

At the moment I’m wasting time in Deciat while I engineer my Asp Explorer (FSD boost, dirty drive tuning) and Alliance Chieftain (FSD boost, drag drives and dirty drive tuning)

I got quite into oolite about 5+ years ago, it was a good upgrade on the original.