Skip to navigation


Useful links

Here's a collection of links that I've found useful or interesting when working on this project.

General
-------

  • Ian Bell's Elite site - The most important source for 8-bit Elite fans, quite literally, as without the original source discs released here, none of this would be possible; thank you for the wonderful gift, Ian!
  • Ian Bell's handwritten dev docs - Fascinating relics from the actual development process of Elite
  • Frontier Astro - If, like me, you don't own all the physical Elite versions but would love to, this is a wonderful resource
  • Elite wiki classic articles - The Elite wiki gave me a head start on a number of topics and is a highly recommended read
  • The alt.fan.elite FAQ - I've read this FAQ many times over the years, and although it contains a few errors, it's still a great read from the Usenet era
  • Elite-A - Angus Duggan's Elite-A page, where you can find instructions and download links for his extended version of Elite

BBC Micro information and tools
-------------------------------

  • BBC ASCII character set - I can't tell you how many times I've had to refer to this table when disassembling Elite; I probably should have just printed it out!
  • BBC MOS disassembly - I found this particularly useful when trying to decipher keyboard translation tables and undocumented OS calls
  • BBC memory map - When every single byte counts, as it does in Elite, a map is an essential part of the toolkit
  • Hex and binary converter - Probably the web tool I used the most during this project, especially when converting numbers into binary
  • The 76489 sound chip - I'm not sure I fully understand the sound chip in the Beeb, but this article really helps explain things
  • Teletext page editor - A really useful tool for designing BBC Micro teletext screens, which I used to create the dashboard in Teletext Elite

Emulators
---------

  • b2 - A Beeb emulator with brilliant debugging capabilities that happily works on the Mac, and which is now my go-to emulator for complex disassembly projects like this
  • JSBeeb (BBC Micro) - An absolute tour-de-force from Matt Godbolt, this browser-based emulator is brilliant for testing Elite builds in all the variations of the BBC Micro and Master
  • Using the JSBeeb debugger - A very useful tool when trying to work out what all those zero-page locations actually do
  • BeebEm - An oldie but a goldie, and particularly useful for screenshots
  • beebjit - The best BBC emulator for playing with disc protection on the original discs
  • B-em - You can never have too many BBC Micro emulators, right?

Assemblers and disassemblers
----------------------------

  • BeebAsm - The wonderful 6502 assembler that powers the versions that are documented on this site
  • BeebDis - I found this super-useful for disassembling the disc, Master and Electron versions, for which the source discs are lost in time
  • A BeebDis thread on Stardot - Some handy information for users of BeebDis

6502 Second Processor
---------------------

Universe in a bottle
--------------------

Ships and 3D graphics
---------------------

Other Elite disassemblies
-------------------------

  • Elite for BeebAsm - Kieran Connell's original BeebAsm port, without which this project would never have cleared the first hurdle
  • Original Stardot thread about Elite for BeebAsm - This is the thread I stumbled across during lockdown that started the whole thing
  • Apple Elite disassembly - Brilliant work from Andy McFadden on the Apple II version, particularly in his analysis of the ship-drawing code
  • Elite Harmless - A knockout project from Kroc Camen that's taking the C64 version and making it even better
  • Elite: The New Kind source - For those of us disassembling Elite, Christian Pinder is a complete legend, and this is the reason why

6502 assembly code
------------------

Commodore 64
------------

  • Elite Harmless - An epic disassembly of Commodore 64 Elite, with improvements; a very useful companion for exploring the Commodore 64 version
  • Commodore 64 memory map - Essential information for anyone working with the Commodore 64 at machine level
  • The 6510 processor port - An excellent explanation of the different memory configurations on the Commodore 64
  • C64 Kernal API - The ultimate reference for the Commodore 64's kernal calls

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
-----------------------------------

The history of Elite
--------------------

Anaglyph 3D
-----------