Elite Dangerous History -The Original Elite of 1984

[@ashroskell]

I can’t believe I fell so deeply in love with such a simplistic looking, wire frame game, but I was truly smitten. Thanks for the memories, Elite’s creators.

[@mickikaufman5360]

1985, Atari computer (400?), friend’s house, weekend sleepover to play Elite. Imagination, inspiration, friendship. Thank you for these great posts and adventures.

[@drewwagar]

I remember doing very similar things - lovely memories of a simpler time. :)

[@mickikaufman5360]

Nostalgia is a peculiarly lovely affliction :) keep up the great work.

[@Scarecr0wn]

Original Elite is 4 years older then myself. But I can definitely appreciate what that game was for you older folks and what it meant for whole gaming. Obviously it´s a bit hard for me to even understand how it is.. well played, but I very much enjoyed this video. Thanks Drew!

[@blakeirvin3011]

You're the same age as me, then! '88, the Year of the Dragon!

[@yugster78]

Remember my primary school teacher introduced me to Elite late 80's, on the BBC. The other kids thought I was weird for wanting to go on the computer at brake time lol

[@TheHighWake]

I love the concept of meta lore. Elite has so many levels of historical depth as an artificial world, as a game, as a program, as part of the history of software development. An amazing phenomenon.

[@overlordavali1562]

This game may be older than I am but it's the community that kindred my love for it it very quickly became one of my favorite games

[@drewwagar]

Most of the community are pretty decent types. :)

[@SpikesRotten]

My introduction to Elite was the Amiga version, I got it as a Christmas gift in 1988 together with Helloween - Keeper of the Sevens Keys, Part 2. Listening to that album and playing Elite on an Amiga emulator while drinking Julmust takes me back to that time! Playing Elite Dangerous is like playing those early versions with the details filled in, the stuff that your imagination made up for the lack of detailed graphics :)

[@pandafoz9994]

Just started getting into the lore, these videos are amazing for it!

[@AurelianBrother]

Likewise I got back into elite dangerous lately and this has really supplemented and enhanced my mining and grinding :)

[@DaveTheSpider]

My Dad saved up for year to buy me my BBC B. Best present I ever got! I remember waiting for what seemed like days for Elite to load up from a tape.

[@TheKermit2110]

Re-watching your excellent ED history yet again Drew, in my view the best ED documentary ever compiled

[@telesian5143]

I had the BBC B, and spent months trying to find this game. It was the one game I really wanted. When I got it it was the only game I played much to my brothers annoyance as he wanted to play other games.

[@boyavatar2000]

This nearly made me pass out from the thudding waves of nostalgia. Really enjoyed it, thank you.

[@emdee0014]

I played on the Commodore ( iirc) in the late 80’s. I rediscovered this last year and would have never thought it was the same game I played all those years ago. Makes me feel young again.

[@Chris_Rog]

Elite was a step up from anything else at the time and paved the way for future gaming. I remember being jealous of my friend's 5.25" disk drive to load this game; I had to go and make a coffee while I waited for it to load from a cassette tape.

[@MickeyTTT]

I first played Elite on my ZX Spectrum but didn't really get into this series until Frontier Elite II on the Amiga 500. I continued playing it now and again up until Elite Dangerous came out, for which I'm one of the premium beta backers. Although I was looking forward to Elite Dangerous I wasn't playing so many games by then, half my motivation for backing it was that there were very few space games for the next generation to play, and although it was one of the best Freelancer just didn't have the same believability. I'm looking forward to Odyssey and your hopefully upcoming next video about it in this series.

[@CokeeDaPenguin]

Bought it on release day to run on my BBC B but could only get it on tape. 2 days later I found it on disc and sold the tape version for a £3 loss. If my memory serves me well, the stolen ship was last seen near the planet Reesdice but was actually located on the 2nd galactic chart. The final mission was an absolute nightmare as the Thargoids which would only ever nobble you in 'witchspace' were now in normal space but it did add some fun being able to scoop the Tharglets as Alien items once you destroyed the mother ship. Got to Elite in 9 months and thank heavens for online newsgroups for the invaluable help. Dial-up Pace 56k modem to the rescue.

[@tw7998]

My dad (RIP) got me a BBC micro to help me with school work but we ended up playing this to death. Thanks for uploading

[@Datan0de]

My boxed copy of the C-64 version is proudly on display in the shelf of my workshop/office/computer dungeon. Just looking at it takes me back to high school, both playing the game and comparing notes and experiences with friends.

[@RobBCactive]

Having seen Elite played at Uni in a lab with BBC Micros available as a terminal room, I KNEW I had to get it on disc, my parents had bought one for word processing and a line in biz software. So went most of one summer vacation, oddly I can't remember alternate galaxies (perhaps I missed the drive option), but I did all the missions and eventually became bored at deadly level. My commander was passed on to a friend a couple of years later, who had the Master version, which lacked the analogue joysticks and made computer less docking much easier.

[@deio977]

Omg! I was a kid back then and it was a game so hard to me! Beautiful game played on Commodore 64! I could cry ... :( As always, Mr. Wagar delights us with something out of the ordinary :)

[@SWIFTO_SCYTHE]

Thank you for this informative history lesson of Elite and videogame technology

[@markfrombriz]

Excellent summary, this was a groundbreaking game for me on the CBM 64 and now taken to new heights on the PC and consoles with elite dangerous and it's fabulous communuty

[@lightwoven5326]

Theres a book describing the first moment where a game became open ended. Elite was programmed so that the player could fuel scoop, not only suns, but also cargo dropped, those 4 bytes of code changed the game from a linear progression to a multi threaded capability where you could take on a role of pirate or even a scavenger. This single idea is responsible for every open world game and role play since.

[@randomhato]

Spectrum 48k vet here. Great memories!

[@drewwagar]

The Spectrum version was the best, of course. :) J, shift PP! ;)

[@roald3837]

Played it on my Sony MSX 2 computer loved the game than and still playing.

[@DirkThys]

Back in the days when the only GPU available was your own imagination 😊

[@PapaSkyRooster]

That one person that disliked is a Thargay lover

[@VikingGuard]

Played Elite for the first time on IBM pc in 1986-7 if memory serves me right.

[@egoalter1276]

First space sim, first sandbox game, first real time 3d rendered program, first use of procedural generation in software, and then they do it again with Frontier. People like to hype John Carmack's contribution to graphical rendering, and they are certainly staggering, but I'd say Bell and Braben were just as important.

[@peregrin71]

I played the MSX version, which came out a few years later. A combination of a lot of existing versions (except I think the C64 one). Had tons of fun with it.

[@adyl4fs590]

Shivers... the docking visual and the chg chg chg of the BBC-B external disk drive - meant you'd actually docked OK and not added a hidden-line removal wire-frame 3D 8-bit particle effect smear on the outside of the station. And the way you had to sort of spin-slide-rotate targets into the crosshairs to hammer them. Nice trip back to the 80s, without the hair spray and shoulder pads!

[@IronHead42]

OG BBC Model B in the eighties here. Me and my mate Gavin would take turns as pilot and co pilot on his computer. It sounded like EEEEEE! uuuurrr... while loading.

[@IronHead42]

For, like, five to fifteen minutes. And it ran if you were lucky. Kids these days and their loading times complaints... Pfft...

[@DevilbyMoonlight]

trumbles.... I remember those filling up my cockpit on the Amiga version lol I think the supernova mission was the one to follow, then after that if memory serves was chasing the constrictor around cant remember what reward came 1st the naval energy unit or the military lasers though...

[@cmdrvaneia1498]

Maybe for your birthday we could get FDev to add in a hat like yours for our player commanders

[@drewwagar]

Love it!

[@mistermark8755]

love this game my favourite :)

[@BigSunn0]

"similar to the chap who failed to sign the Beatles" lol ok ok ok, a little tiny bit hyperbolic lol

[@egoalter1276]

Did OG Elite have no occlusion culling?

[@overtokyo13]

What was the name of the book?

[@drewwagar]

"The Dark Wheel" - by Robert Holdstock.

[@wyk4wgary]

Bless our Lord Braben!

[@leviathanskiss8720]

Elite Dangerous is being ruined by players who do not understand Elite. This video tells the slight story of how I and my other friends 1st started all those decade's ago. This is why I love Elite so much and can completely understand and respect Elite Dangerous. The Frontier Development Team are listening to the players who do not understand Elite and unfortunately, I can see Elite crashing to an end soon. The family elements are been taken away for humanoid combat and impatient combat players are moaning about Supercruise traveling times. If Frontier mess with the Supercruise traveling times, the 1:1 scale, they kill my and my friends Exploration enjoyment. Mr. Wager, If you still have input into Elite within Frontier then I ask you, no, WE BEG YOU, ask Frontier Elite Development Team to listen to us 36 year long veterans because we are being ignored and I as the veterans spokesperson along with other veterans of Elite have been pushed out and bullied of the Forum pages and the talk over the past 6 months has been about combat, combat, combat and now the players who do not understand Elite, the impatient players are driving hard towards changing the the Supercruise traveling times, the 1:1 scale. I'm trying to save Elite from blind developers making a big mistake. They've already messed up our space trucking through changes bought on by these newish players to Elite who just want everything to fall into their laps. These newish impatient combat players are killing Elite and this development team cannot see it. You care about Elite, so please, help me keep Elite alive for another 36 years. If your interested, I'm writing a script/book about my adventures over the past 36 years of Elite. I'm very unwell so I quite literally live my dream within the Elite Galaxy about 10-12hrs a day but my psychologist thought it would be great for my mental health to write about my adventures and entertain the world with my day to day life as a backward but caring trucking, Exploration and bounty hunter Cmdr. Thank you for your efforts in making this video, oh yes, I was BBC and my friends were Commodore 64 users. I was 12yrs old but that's for my stories. It was a joy as always to see Elite start up. Thank you kind Sir.

[@RobBCactive]

I remember the original game had a skip forward key, an advantage of single player. Other multi-player games suffer from real time constraints.

[@killjoy350]

Lame game