Comments
![[Moccasin pic]](ims/ships/moccas.gif)
In response...
I'm sometimes asked about the Frontier games. Please don't, as there
are people who know far more about them than me (see the
links section for some pages providing information about them). For those
people who keep asking me where a DOS version of Elite can be found it's on
Ian Bell's pages.
A note on the graphics:
These were all drawn by me (no scanning has been used) even if the originals were not,
unless otherwise stated. The programs Paint (ahem!) and Atelier were invaluable for this.
When I managed to get my hands on an A5000 (and it seemed wonderful after the 1meg A310!)
Atelier wouldn't work and things looked dire indeed. Fortunately I found a way to kick
it into motion without crashing.
After owning a RiscPC for several years I didn't do too much more to the ships, but
eventually I decided to see if I could improve the pictures somewhat, so, as of October
2003, I started going through them all and replacing them with new and improved pictures.
The old ones are still hanging around somewhere, should anyone want them.
Connoisseurs of Elite should recognise most of the ship illustrations as being those from
the Beeb manual, so I hope I'm not going to have the copyright brigade after me. Nobody
has complained yet, at any rate. ArcElite ship illustrations will probably be made up
entirely from scratch as the DataCards don't seem to show them in very good "poses".
A note on the styles:
There exist some noticeable differences between the 8-bit and 32-bit versions
of Elite that may result in some people wondering why something looks as it
does. In some cases I have used information from the BBC versions, and
sometimes ideas from ArcElite. The Vipers and Cobra illustration (on the hints page)
demonstrates this nicely. The Vipers are the ArcElite version and look significantly
different from those seen on the Beeb. The Cobra features the prong on the
front, though, and that doesn't appear in the Arc. It's a matter of personal
taste. The Krait is another ship that will be seen in the original design,
where I believe it looked far better.
History and Updates
As far as I can remember this web page started off when I decided one day to start
fiddling around with HTML. Since it isn't all that complicated (at least none of the
stuff here is) it didn't take me long to produce something. These initial efforts where
really just random doodles, so I quickly decided that if I was going to continue then I
might as well have some aim in mind. I hadn't come across much about Elite on the Internet
at the time, and even less about the versions I knew best, so I decided that I might as
well produce my own page on it. After all, I knew a bit about it, and the
contents wouldn't be duplicated on hundreds of other sites. This was back during my time at
university in York. Most of what's happened since then is listed below.
Some minor updates and corrections may not be mentioned here. The dates are when the
modifications were made, not when they were uploaded, and the difference might be
quite large due to forgetfulness, laziness, not being near somewhere where I can upload
them etc.
2009
24th September - New Elite A ship review (Anaconda). The first update in over five years completes the Elite A ship reviews, and comes just a few days after Elite's 25th Anniversary - Right On, Commanders Bell and Braben!
2004
29th July - Links updated. Added Gold Edition, and the Princes
of the Universe site seems to have gone the way of the dodo.
2003
19th October - Started a slow project of redrawing the ship pictures (Sidewinder in the Pictures section is the first).
9th October - Elite A Commander File Editor uploaded
1st October - Added a bit about Yaw Boosters in the Troubleshooting section
19th August - A new chapter of The Price of the Elite! First one in over two and a half years.
14th January - Updated link to Tamias' page.
2002
10th August - Site re-uploaded due to its accidental deletion.
2001
16th November - New Elite A ship review (Asp).
25th January - New Elite A ship review (Boa).
2000
29th December - Web rings removed (their status is uncertain at the current time, thanks to the takeover of webring.org messing things up). Also various minor errors corrected. Chapter 5 of "The Price of the Elite".
13th September - First chapter of a new story, "The Price of the Elite". Unlike "Aftermath" I'm not going to clutter up this page every time I release a new chapter, although it will still be announced on the main page.
7th September - "Aftermath" part 20, bringing the story to a close.
31st August - "Aftermath" part 19. I ought to stop noting each of these. After all, does anyone really care? All it's doing is showing how slow I am!
18th August - "Aftermath" part 18
8th August - "Aftermath" part 17
1st August - "Aftermath" part 16
25th July - Site has a presence in the Elite BBS
18th July - "Aftermath" part 15, and a new Elite A commander
in the Top Commanders section
15th July - New Elite A ship review (Python)
3rd July - "Calm and Chaos" created (a short story, in the Archive)
26th June - "Aftermath" part 14 up.
10th June - Links updated, with my Three Dimensional Encounters page.
3rd June - "Aftermath" part 13 up.
25th May - "Aftermath" part 12 up.
18th May - "Aftermath" part 11 up.
13th May - "Aftermath" part 10 up.
7th May - Game downloads (BBC Elites in a format ready to
run with 6502Em), and link in the same place to ArcElite download.
25th April - Some new links and "Aftermath" part 9.
19th April - "Aftermath" parts 7 and 8 completed and uploaded,
and, belive it or not, a new commander in the Top Commanders section.
12th April - More of "Aftermath" done.
28th March - Adder data sheet available (can be accessed
via the Adder in the Elite A ship reviews). This is really just the result of
doodling when I was bored of working. Also there's an (incomplete) bit of Elite fiction
("Aftermath") that I'm writing in the Archive section.
4th March - Updated the links section by including a couple
of other sites.
28th Februrary - Back up (I hope!)
15th Februrary - Things are hopefully ready for uploading to
Acorn Arcade. Whilst preparing for this I stuck width and height attributes on (nearly all)
images (very tedious!)
3rd February - More off-line alterations. I'm now sitting around
at home looking for a job, and now at last we have an Internet connection (not on my RiscPC,
alas). This means that once I muster the effort it should be up again. And once the PC with
the modem comes back. It's gone wrong already. Typical. Back to the page, thought I had
better try the alterations out on a PC (well, the PC card). Should have realised that
Microsoft's excuse of a browser wouldn't accept 'colour' spelled that way. And it
messed up with (what I think is) some perfectly decent HTML, and since some people
(e.g. me) have to use a PC on the Web I've made it work with that program. Perhaps newer
versions of Internet Explorer aren't as bad, but they probably are.
1999
6th October - Off-line alterations that won't be seen for ages,
most likely.
26th August - A few corrections and the goodbye message :-(
5th June - Elite-A ship buying section had graphics added to it
because the text list of ships looked rather dull.
23rd May - New Elite-A ship review (Monitor).
19th May - Elite-A Top Commanders section created.
10th March - New set of questions for the quiz and put a note on
the main page mentioning the last update (much easier for people to see it there rather
than waste time looking here).
22nd January - Interview with Clive Gringras moved into the
Archive section, a much more logical place for it to be.
1998
21st October - Added a few animations from ArcElite (mostly so
those people who keep asking about it can have a vague idea what it's like).
19th September - Better resolution logo finally finished. A few
minor changes.
21st May - A few minor alterations and updates.
6th May - Internal re-structuring plus a few minor alterations
and two more Elite A ships reviews.
5th May - extra ship in the Elite A ship reviews, and the first
new commander for ages in the Top Commanders section.
13th March - Elite A ship reviews tidied up (each ship has its
own page). Two ships added to the reviews. Numerous minor alterations.
Mid February (I forgot to update this at the time, and I forget
the exact date now) - Quiz started.
9th February - Hints section re-done, with the introduction of
some Elite-A hints.
Later in January - Finally bought 6502Em, and obtained Elite-A.
So, a few screenshots have appeared. More Elite-A information will be added later.
15th January - Exams are over, and lectures don't start until
next week. Therefore I've a little time to update things. Stuck some pictures on the
pictures page. Added an old Beebug review to the Archive section. One or two minor
corrections as well.
1997
27th November - The Archive section was started. Somebody's
combat technique was added to the Hints section (I'm afraid I've gone and lost the email,
so I can't give credit).
17th November - Introduced the competition. I hope I get some
entries!
18th October - Made preparations for bringing the site back
under my control, and moved this History list to here. Also altered it so that the most
recent alterations are at the top of the list.
26th June - Alterations made in preparation for moving the lot
to another site.
21st May - Another comment on the comments was added, when I
should be revising (or sleeping, anyway).
28th March - Request for StrongARM help added to Troubleshooting
page.
24th February - Little bit included on the Thargoids page. A few
spelling mistakes have been corrected.
9th January - More commanders added to Top Commanders section.
1996
20th November - Elite logo saved as lower resolution to save
space (it was previously a Mode 15 sprite that had had its width doubled - a little
inefficient when height and width tags exist).
October - Several commanders added to the Top Commanders section.
14th November - Pictures section tidied.
8th August - Most of it moved into new directory, EliteDir, for
the sake of tidiness, but the top page kept where it is so that everyone else's links
to this page still work (I hope that there are some!).
Updated and re-arranged in July, along with some small
alterations to make the thing appear as intended with ArcWeb.
Previous history is lost in the depths of time. I can't remember it and I don't keep old
copies of my page (I had precious little hard disc space back then). I'm not even sure when
I started the thing. I think it was started some time in 1996, so there
probably isn't too much missing.
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