For those of a certain vintage ...

[wellinghall]

"The classic computer space-trading game Elite has celebrated its 25th anniversary."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8261272.stm

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, I used to share a house with three and a half computer geeks who stayed up all night playing that!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I was near neighbours with at least two avid players in my first year at Essex.

[overconvergent.livejournal.com]

I remember playing the Spectrum 48K version :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about that.

[foradan.livejournal.com]

I remember playing it for the first time, having not read the manual carefully enough, and having jumped to another system, being a bit stuck, since I had not discovered the 'J' key that dramatically decreases the time it takes to get anywhere.

http://www.oolite.org/ is a good implementation of the original game for modern computers, with lots of available extensions, including more ships, equipment, missions, etc (which also allowing the flying of ships other than the Cobra Mk III).

[sally_maria]

Thank you very much for the link - I'm sure my brothers will enjoy playing the game again.

I was more of a Repton 3 player myself. :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I might take a look at that sometime.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Right on, Commander!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

:-)

[sally_maria]

My brothers used to play Elite a lot on our BBC B computer - I used to keep track of the commodity prices for them, so they could trade more efficiently, but I was dreadful at actually controlling the spaceship.

My game of choice was Repton - see icon. :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

It doesn't ring a bell with me, but then I was never a great gamer (despite the subject of this post).

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Without wishing to boast*, I reached combat rating 'Elite'.

I actually used that fact in a job interview once in answer to the question "What is your proudest achievement?"**




* Actually scratch that, this IS a boast.
** Not an accountancy job; it was for selling computer games in what used to be the Virgin shop in Oxford.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

You were the first one I thought of when I saw the story. My second thought was of my colleague, who has previously said that his RSI dates back 25 years, and is due to Elite.