Updating Acorn Electron Elite with all the bells and whistles of the BBC
The Acorn Electron is an absolutely delightful machine. I didn't own one back in the day, but I recently managed to pick one up second-hand, mainly so I could see flicker-free Elite running on real hardware. What I didn't realise was that I would fall in love with the Electron's physical form. It is such a lovely, tactile object; beautifully made, perfectly sized, elegantly 1980s.
But even the most ardent Electron fans have to admit that the official release of Elite suffers from being on the slower and less configurable machine. There are some major features missing from the game, and it's pretty slow when compared to the BBC Micro version; you can read all about this in the Acorn Electron Elite memory map.
So while Electron users tend to adore their machines, there's always a bit of jealousy when it comes to Elite (not unlike the relationship between players of the BBC Micro cassette and BBC Micro disc versions). But no more! Because the Compendium version of Acorn Electron Elite brings almost everything from the BBC versions to the Electron, and more.
For example, planets now have planetary details, so when you launch from Lave at the start of the game, it looks like this:
And it includes are all the ship and station designs from the BBC Micro disc version, including Dodo stations:
There are Thargoids too:
And not only are both missions backported from the BBC Micro, including the Constrictor mission shown below, but it also includes the Trumbles mission from the Commodore 64 and NES versions:
Finally, for those with E00 DFS or ADFS, there's a version of Compendium Elite that contains the music from the Commodore 64 version, so Electon players can finally enjoy the Blue Danube when engaging their docking computers.
Find out how to play or download the Compendium version of Acorn Electron Elite and what you need to run it, or dive into the technical information to discover the huge number of enhancements in this version of Elite.