| The original Elite, written by Ian Bell and David Braben for the U.K.
BBC Micro computer, was written as a hobby while they were attending the University
of Cambridge. |
| Before Elite, Ian Bell wrote Freefall for the BBC Micro (published
by Acornsoft). The game was set inside an octagonal space station like the Elite
Coriolis stations. |
| In Korean, Elite literally means, "endless monsoon". |
| In 1985 and 1986 Firebird Software in the U.K. held an Elite Tournament.
The player started from scratch, and had 2.5 hours to reach the highest combat rating,
and most number of credits possible. Thousands of players participated from many
countries around the world. |
| Except for Archimedes Elite, Sinclair Spectrum, and BBC Micro versions
<3> which did not have music, Strauss's Blue
Danube is the music used for the docking and landing sequences. The
idea came from the docking sequence in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. |
| The original Elite Theme was written by Aiden Bell, Ian Bell's brother.
Aiden is a composer, actor, and theatrical producer. |
| The Cobra Mark III got its name from the concept of designing the ship to
resemble the head of a cobra snake. The asp names for the other ships were
an expansion of the original idea. |
| The shape for the Cobra Mark III was actually created before the Cobra
Mark I. <1> |
| Commander Jameson was in homage to Jamison, the character from
Traveller, a favorite RPG board game of Ian's, which also inspired
elements of Elite such as the government and economic planetary types. |
| Elite has eight galaxies to explore. However, a ninth galaxy is mentioned in
the coding. Ian Bell put this in as a surprise for any one who got there by hacking the
code. The galaxy is identical to the first. |
| The Amiga version of Elite included a built-in Hex Editor. |
| The Amiga version of Frontier First Encounters was never completed. It had
been planned for a summer 1995 release for the Amiga A1200, A4000, and CD32 systems.
|
| The IBM version of Elite Plus displayed a great graphic for obtaining the
Elite rating. |
| The space stations on the IBM version of Elite Plus rotate in the opposite
direction to those in most of the other 8 bit versions of the game.
<2> |
| The "Trumbles" mission in Elite was added to pay homage to the
Star Trek TV episode The Trouble with Tribbles. It was also to Douglas Trumbull,
creator of the special video effects in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. In 1972 Mr.
Trumbull went on to direct the classic space movie, Silent Running, starring Bruce
Dern. |
| The 16 bit versions of the game included a "Cloaking Device" (masking device
in Elite Plus), which rendered your ship invisible for a short period. A program
address was alloted in the Frontier versions, but the item was not included in the
games. |
| Contrary to the manual, Elite never had "Space Dredgers" in any versions of the
game. |
| Frontier Elite II included coding for the buying/selling of ship hulls and
insurance, and escort duty for convoys. They were not completed, and never activated in
the final release. |
| The Energy Booster Unit description, "The Coppertop. No other looks like it, or
lasts like it.", came from a popular Duracell commercial in the 1970s. The graphic
for the Energy Booster Unit in Elite Plus even looks like two Duracell AA
Batteries. |
| The Pulse and Beam laser descriptions made reference to "Ingram", a weapons
manufacturer. Their machine gun gained world-wide popularity in the movie Mc-Q
starring John Wayne. |
| The planetary descriptions "Froody", Hoopy, and Zero G Cricket" came
from the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas N. Adams. <2> |
| "Surgical Spares" was under consideration as one of the trading commodities
in Elite. It was rejected by the publisher as being too grim for the final release
of the game. |
| The NES Elite Slaves was changed to Robot Slaves to meet strict Nintendo
content restrictions. |
| The "local area" of the Frontier version's universe is very accurate,
and has been used by students at a college of astronomy for their studies. |
| The E.C.M. system in Arc Elite is manufactured by "Brell & Baben",
in reference to the authors, Bell and Braben. Years later, people are still referring
to Braben as Baben in newsgroup messages. <1>
|
| The Elite Boa description "Largely developed out of the recommendations
left by Commodore Monty, a Python Captain of 40 years experience" refers to the BBC
TV show Monty Python's Flying Circus. <2> |
| Warren Burch, a programmer for Arc Elite, was very upset with the pink coloured
Boa II ship. He tried, and failed, to get away with not coding it into the game.
The datacard for the ship says that "Berch Industries on Birera will respray any
Boa." <1> |
| The Copperhead ship in Arc Elite is the same as the player ship in
Zarch Virus I. <1> |
| In Frontier the farthest known populated system from Sol is Adaqu at
coordinates [-4709, -4424], a distance of 51,869.71 light years. It is an Independent
Corporate mining state with starport Lee located on O'Rourke's Legacy. |
| Finally, a little personal Frontier First Encounters trivia. See the graphic
below. Imagine my surprise as I check into a station BBS, only to find someone actually
looking for me! Note that the background is one of the custom designs
you can download on my Utilities page. |
