Why no Atari 8-bit Elite homebrew?

[atarilux]

Nice work, I played Elite for hours with a friend who owned a BBC - the original platform it was on. The A8 demo looks very impressive, its great to see even an unofficial version come to the Atari.  To answer a really early question, why no Atari 8 version till now? Elite was (if I remember right) from a British software developer and was published by Acornsoft. Ports were often made to Acornsoft games but usually to the other popular platforms in the UK, ie. Spectrum, Commodore and Amstrad. Elite was a game which persuaded a fair few to buy Acorn machines, it was almost their Super Mario! Also, there was little interest in the A8 in the UK relative to other platforms. I had a Spectrum initially then also an A8 later, and so many UK games never crossed the divide. The A8 was almost a new gaming world, which made it sort of fun but also a little harder to get things for. I was never away from mail order, or one of the few local resellers - who happened to be a guy at my local market who sold stuff for many machines, including Oric.

 

There was an Atari 8-bit community in the UK, but it was never on the scale of the other platforms, so it was rarely economic for people to publish for it. Some did, but they were often diehards.. thankfully.

 

[Wrathchild]

1 hour ago, atarilux said:

To answer a really early question, why no Atari 8 version till now?

Lot's of chat on the subject within these forums, check out this topic, but also the links specified in my post:

And after this:

 

 

[oky2000]

Checked out the latest YT video, nice to see this is still moving along. Every computer deserves a version of Elite.

[snicklin]

I think the UK market only took off when the much cheaper XE machines came along. All the competitors were cheap machines but you could get a 16 bit machine for what early Ataris cost. Elite is from 1984 right? Yes, not many Atari users in the UK where I grew up. It was all Spectrum, Amstrad and then C64 owners with some Acorn users after that. I would say by 1989, the A8 made it to 4th place due to the XE machines. Too late for Elite. I was a bit peeved with one of the Oliver twins at a show once, not sure which who told me that they didn't make Dizzy games for the A8 because it was too expensive to make cartridges. But they did for a zillion other platforms.

Edited February 17, 2023 by snicklin
Liberal non requested addition of superfluous spacing

[Steril707]

It's interesting to see the general picture of ports of british games to the A8 this in light of this.

[TIX]

On 2/9/2023 at 11:35 AM, Wrathchild said:

.

C64 Trumbles is C64 sprite specific and so could be dropped/reworked.

.

 

I wonder if I can help draw a new "Atari specific" Trumble ?!

Let me know if you need a hand.

 

[Ely]

4 hours ago, snicklin said:

 I was a bit peeved with one of the Oliver twins at a show once, not sure which who told me that they didn't make Dizzy games for the A8 because it was too expensive to make cartridges. But they did for a zillion other platforms.

That seems an odd comment given every A8 release from UK software houses came out on Cassette in that period from 87-90. I had F1 Simulator on cassette which is one of their games!

[twh/f2]

On 2/14/2023 at 12:12 AM, Wrathchild said:

 

"Let there be sight(s)!"

 

 

This is btw a very interesting read and gives some nice background infos on the epic original BEEP BBC Micro version of Elite:

 

"Elite planet craters, meridians and ellipse plotting explained"

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26490

 

Btw. any new developement?

 

[Wrathchild]

No updates, busy couple of weeks with work, more latterly upgrading a site from old DNX code, i.e. pre .NET Core, to .NET 6.

[twh/f2]

while I just spend thoughts on Silkwom from this other topic thread, I just wondered if there were any updates on Elite A8 🙂 .. .. .. well just kidding, I know if there would be something new we already had it in here..

 

I'm just saying that I really appreciate all this work on doing cross-platform conversions. On one side porting in general is a lot of work just for some "pathetic feelings" (Me: "hey world, A8 can do it too! ha ha!") and other side it is a real "love letter" to the original creators, that someting from the 80s is still meaningfull to people who are investing a lot of work...

 

So another way of saying thanks

 

grüße

\twh

[slaanesh]

Im still very curious to see what will become of the A8 version of Elite, I've got a PAL and NTSC machine ready to test this out as soon as it's release  

[+Philsan]

@Wrathchild is there anything useful for you in these new sources?

 

There's an A8 demo too (I cannot test it ATM).

 

http://www.elitehomepage.org/fourty/index.htm

[Wrathchild]

Not really, the sources have been around for ages. My code was a from a disassembly of the C64 I did over long period without references and so my labelling etc doesn't align.

Similarly with the more recent Mark Moxan documented sources these are not the basis of my port but instead being used as reference to ensure my code remains consistent to the original.

The A8 demo was my original one (no flight code) I sent to Ian Bell as himself and Christian Pinder (Elite-TNG) where people I was conversing with when trying to confirm some of the player/ship elements I'd identified in the code so far.

[+scorpio_ny]

I just looked at the web page. The 40th anniversary for Elite just passed on September 20th! How time flies!!

[Steril707]

Wow. 40 years... 
I feel old now...

[Tillek]

One of the most iconic games ever.

 

[olix]

Unfortunately, I never played Elite because I only had an Atari. But I was a bit sad back then and also a bit jealous of the Commodore users who had Elite.