"Elite" worries

Wrathchild · March 14, 2003

I hadn't been paying attention but have just discovered:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&...0frontier.co.uk

I guess that effects an 8-bit Atari port too huh?!

Mark

Sheddy · March 17, 2003

Certainly worrying....looks like the "discussion" got a bit heated!

Out of curiosity, are you working from one of these sources or from scratch? Mr. Braben seems like he may be reasonable if permission is asked for - so it could be worth asking....or maybe you should just keep a very low profile!

Wrathchild · March 18, 2003

Hi,

I've reverse engineered the C64 version over the years and come to understand how most of it works. I had got to a stage where I could begin to write the A8 version and this fell into place fairly easily using A800Win and CA65 as the main dev tools resulting in the demo on Ian Bell's site.

Whilst working out some of the structures I had some help from Christian Pinder and Ian Bell giving me some useful clues. I have mailed Frontier a couple of times in the past enquiring about an A8 version's existence or whether I could have the C64 sources under a non-disclosure agreement to work from, but never received a reply. I'll try to approach them again, however my opinion has always been that an A8 port would be a binary release, i.e. I would not release the sources. This fits in with David's statement, however my understanding is that the binary should be available as shareware through Frontier Developments. I don't know how that would work? Release a crippled verison and then give a full exe when paid for? The A8 isn't gonna support license keys :roll: . My wish was that the image (disk/tape) would be freely downloadable for playing in an emulator (and people couldmake their own disks for their actual A8s), and I'd make a cartridge version that people could buy for the cost of parts/time and post. Whether that would include a percentage that goes to Frontier I don't know, I'll need to ask them.