Elite / Frontier elite on tatung einstein

[dave4mame]

Hi everyone.
i'm an old elite fan (spectrum version).
being quite fond of emulation too, i like to see elite running on every system it has been ported to.

i was almost sure tatung einstein elite not to be working on mess (the only emulator available for the einy, afaik), but, according to this page

http://www.frontierastro.co.uk/Elite/einstein.html

Mess should load the disk images and the classic spinning MKIII should appear.
i tried using mess 139 (as i tried in the past with many other versions...) but the elite disk is not even recognized.

Can anyone please confirm that tatung elite actually works?

thanks a lot!

dave

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

Tatung Einstein? Now that's a name I haven't heard since...

 

[Sir.Tj]

Hi Dave,

Welcome to the forum,

Try this site http://www.tatungeinstein.co.uk/ seems like a nice site fot the tatung, though as you said it seems like Mess is the only Emulator out there,

Sounds like your copy of Elite may be corrupt, rather than the emulator not working.

Might be a bit difficult to get another image file, but you never know.

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

Are there any significant differences in Elite on the Einstein compared to the other 8-bit versions? I grew up playing it on the BBC and then the C64, but I'm thinking of tracking down an emulator to try it on the Archimedes, assuming there is such a thing. I keep hearing that was the best version, but I'm not so sure.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Are there any significant differences in Elite on the Einstein compared to the other 8-bit versions? I grew up playing it on the BBC and then the C64, but I'm thinking of tracking down an emulator to try it on the Archimedes, assuming there is such a thing. I keep hearing that was the best version, but I'm not so sure.

Don't know if it's any good Kenny but have a look at this http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/

 

[Steve]

Can anyone please confirm that tatung elite actually works?

What I say on the page is that MESS can only run the program up to the spinning Cobra screen. After that, there seems to be no response to any keyboard input.

If you follow the links on the page and use MESS 138 or later, you should get as far as this. If you get any further, please let me know how you did it!

 

[dave4mame]

well.. it took a bit of time, but i managed so fix the problem.

there are two versions of mess: "plain mess", and messpp, optimized for 686 cpus and above.
elite diskimage boots using messpp only.... i was using "plain mess".

btw. einstein elite is a 1:1 port of spectrum version, so it is not a great loss.

btw, are you aware of the esistence of an (heavily) hacked version of elite for the spectrum?
it runs on 128+3 only and add a LOT of features

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

I managed to get a hold of a complete Archimedes emulator off a Mame and Emulator mad friend. I'll try out the version of Elite and see if it's all its cracked up to be.

I was never a Spectrum man myself, it was a crap piece of kit next to the C64.

 

[dave4mame]

ehm... einstein is not archimedes.
(BTW, archimedes elite works quite well)

 

[Steve]

einstein elite is a 1:1 port of spectrum version, so it is not a great loss.

Not sure it's exactly the same. For example, exploding ships in Spectrum Elite give off a brief red circle when they die. In Einstein Elite they just disappear and the display flashes :S
I suppose ultimately though, they are both just as bad as each other (eg. Vipers refusing to come out of the Coriolis no matter how much you shoot at it).

 

[dave4mame]

you are right... vipers not popping out was quite disappointing.
the problem was fixed in elite III, but very few people in western europe had a pentagon to play it on...

 

[enthusi79]

Elite for Tatung Einstein is for sale on german ebay.de right now
While it is super cool and rare, the gameplay is actually among the less-great ones of the 8bit versions..