[HN Gopher] Elite for Emacs (2015)
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Elite for Emacs (2015)
Author : nanna
Score : 151 points
Date : 2023-01-27 19:28 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.salkosuo.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.salkosuo.net)
| jicea wrote:
| My favorite NES game has always been Elite [1]. It's really a
| marvelous gem, that, in my opinion, is not well known. Happy
| memories...
|
| [1]: https://www.justgamesretro.com/nes/elite
| bitwize wrote:
| The NES version famously recreated the vector graphics of the
| home computer originals by having RAM in part of its character
| ROM area on the cartridge, that could be used effectively as a
| framebuffer upon which the vector graphics could be drawn.
|
| We never got this remarkable NES game in NA. More's the pity.
| Bondi_Blue wrote:
| This is wild. Elite is an amazing game. The NES port is
| particularly impressive given the limitations, not just with
| respect to pushing polygons, but to how carefully they chose to
| adapt the controls. And it is the only game, save for a few
| obscure modern homebrew roms, that manages to render polygons on
| the NES (though many games used sprite scaling and other
| techniques to pull off a 3D appearance with varying degrees of
| success).
|
| I wish the NTSC version (which was never shipped on cartridges)
| could run without graphical issues on a real NTSC NES. Instead
| you need a PAL NES or a PAL Emulator.
|
| See the story about how Elite came about if you're curious:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GpWoF5uVgbA
| Otek wrote:
| This needs [2015]
| [deleted]
| gwern wrote:
| (I'm always pleased when I click on a submission and it's exactly
| what I inferred it could not be.)
| guessbest wrote:
| Probably because the online culture in 2003 was a lot tighter
| coupled and now it seems more spread out in different
| simultaneous directions. It even includes the obligatory Docker
| container.
| detrites wrote:
| I too was so ready to be disappointed...
| throwanem wrote:
| In fairness, it looks more like the old Palm game Space Trader,
| ie roughly the same trade model but combat handled by dice
| rolls - if there's any code in here for Elite-style 3D combat,
| I've yet to see it. (Even without graphics and rendering to a
| text buffer, it would be a hell of a thing to get working in
| circa-2001 Emacs on a circa-2001 machine!)
|
| That said, I do still _play_ Space Trader, every now and
| again...
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| At first I assumed it was going to be based on this:
| https://breakintochat.com/wiki/Space_Empire_Elite which is
| more like the trader type games you're talking about.
|
| There was a history of BBS "door" games with this style of
| interface, that would have been quite adaptable to Emacs.
|
| But yeah, his link to 'Elite' does take to the classic 3d
| game.
|
| Nifty.
| outworlder wrote:
| I have tried to reimplement the Elite trading part in
| Javascript(back when I was learning the language, I need a
| 'practical project') but I've found the galaxy generation code to
| be inscrutable. One can implement line by line, but I haven't
| found an explanation for all the byte manipulation and magic
| numbers that are used.
|
| EDIT: found this in the comments
|
| " Function and description taken from elite new kind sources. "
|
| Huh. Maybe I should look into that (and "oolite" as well).
| DrBazza wrote:
| There was or is, a mode 7 version of Elite too.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2emwRygvEAA
| aardvark179 wrote:
| On the other end of the ridiculous spectrum there is a port of
| Elite II to the BBC Micro with an ARM second processor. With an
| upgraded video ULA it looks pretty good.
| helf wrote:
| What's great, too, about the been tube version is that both
| CPUs are actually used. At least with the dual 6502 version.
| I'm assuming the ARM may be a bit different.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I have been trying to get into Elite as part of my retro-gaming
| hobby, but so far my particular combination of free time +
| learning-motivation-levels are like "best I can do is Space
| Trader for Palm".
|
| I'm annoyed that I never gave it the extra push when I was a kid,
| preferring Silent Service, Aces of the Pacific, Strike Commander,
| etc.
|
| Still, I love seeing the proliferation of things like this into
| Emacs. The psychology of Elite-type games has a strong
| propagation bonus factor within general tech psychology. It's
| like if you view tech as a mandelbrot set, you zoom in and you
| can start to see these little Elite wings all over.
|
| (From recent discussions it seems like Lite-XL ought to enable
| this kind of effort too? Being SDL based and anything-goes on the
| scripting side, I'd just hazard a guess)
| helf wrote:
| Space trader for palmos is the bomb! I spent way way too many
| hours playing that.
|
| .. I may have that on my current android phone using a palmos
| emulator. There's also an actual android port of it too though.
|
| Did you ever get to play the leaked Elite 3D port for palmos?
| The dev couldn't get rights for release so abandoned it. I
| cracked and released it after that. I was a beta tester. It's a
| hoot. Works well. Even has a plug-in for the vibrator on the
| Palm M5xx series.
| throwanem wrote:
| You don't even need a native emulator! CloudpilotEmu works
| great, and runs in any modern browser. You'll need to supply
| your own ROM, but those aren't hard to come by these days.
|
| I did not get to play the 3d version. I'd love to try it out
| on my old TX, if you happen to know where a .prc might be
| found... ;)
| themodelplumber wrote:
| That's a good point about Android, I think I play the FDroid
| one or something like that.
|
| I never saw the Elite 3D you mentioned, sounds great. How was
| the color palette? Just curious if it was more monochrome or
| colorful.
|
| I was probably hitting the Cybiko Xtreme really hard at that
| time, having all but given up on gaming on my HP Jornada and
| finding some relief in the KayBee Toys clearance bin ;-)
|
| I do have a bunch of space trading games ready to go here for
| when the right time comes, and I like to leave the Elite Plus
| attract screen open in a DOSBox window sometimes...
| helf wrote:
| Always wanted a cybiko. Had a jornada 720! Great devices
| for the time.
|
| The game is very colorful. I loved it. Here's the original
| website for it.
|
| http://www.harbaum.org/till/palm/elite/index.html
|
| And apparently he either released or something else a v1.0
| with the source code and it is up here:
|
| https://palmdb.net/app/elite-palm
|
| I didn't know this copy existed till a few minutes ago.
| I've only played the one I had which was a version 0.9.5 or
| 9.7 iirc. So now I'm curious to test this out.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Oh that's pretty. Looks fun, thanks for sharing the links
| too. Amazing how far they took it on the platform,
| including Sony Clie multi-track audio!
| nix23 wrote:
| Take privateer first the "gemini gold edition" ;)
|
| https://privateer.sourceforge.net/
| anthk wrote:
| Emacs has a Infocom interpreter too, Malyon.
|
| M-x package install malyon; load a Z? file: M-x malyon.
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