A8 Elite (Acornsoft):The UK Press Claims-What is the real story here?.

[Lost Dragon]

As an avid ATARI USER (magazine) reader during my 800XL days, i recal at least 2 instances of readers writing in asking about plans for the Acornsoft game, ELITE, being converted to the A8.The 1st time it was featured in Mailbag, answer was that there were no plans, yet the 2nd...Vol 2.No.4 August 1986 we saw 2 readers with the question, 1 claiming there'd been a letter in C+VG saying he'd written to Firebird, but recieved no reply, yet had seen a letter in C+VG from a reader claiming the A8 version had been 'smothered at birth' by Acornsoft for being too good.

 

 

Reply from Atari User was that they'd phoned Firebird, yes, they were planning an A8 version over a year ago, early results looked impressive, but sadly the coders working on it had split from Firebird, project shelved, problem now was lack of good A8 coders willing to take on the job, wanted to hear from any who could do it etc etc.

 

All very vague, no-one from Firebird named etc.

 

 

[Lost Dragon]

So far, so much of what i've read in UK Press during the 8 Bit era has turned out to be false, be it screens, claims of games like Druid II etc headed to A8 and being coded by.... Rescue On Fract. in development....Adam Caveman seen running etc...

So should i consign claims of A8 Elite at least being started, to same B.S claim, drawer...or does anyone actually know if there actually were people at Firebird working on it, if so:

Who?, how far along did it get? and how was it shaping up?.

[Rybags]

I heard the rumour of the A8 version being quashed in the day as well (at around the time it would have actually happened).

 

Whether there's any truth... no idea. It's not like they were a prolific producer of good games for Atari like Synapse or Lucasfilm, so it does throw some doubt.

Though given the advantage of A8 over C64 (clock speed, easier to deal with bitmap layout) and comparison to Acorn machines (slower CPU but easier to deal with bitmap) it's fairly logical that if done properly, Elite would be better on Atari than most other 8-bit systems.

[high voltage]

I always wondered why they did a Apple ][ version and not a A8 version. Apple ][ was an absolute flop in Europe.

Mind you Elite for A][ went to number 1 in the USA.

[Bill Loguidice]

I always wondered why they did a Apple ][ version and not a A8 version. Apple ][ was an absolute flop in Europe.

Mind you Elite for A][ went to number 1 in the USA.

 

It was probably nothing more than potential audience. The Apple II had a larger worldwide user base than the Atari 8-bit.

[Lost Dragon]

I did manage to put questions to 2 Ex-Firebird people many months ago, Richard Hewison and James Leavey, but just got following response from Richard:

'Sorry, I have no info on the general Atari 8-bit side of things'.

So that drew an utter blank.

The fact all Atari User could do was say there were coders, but not name who or how many, nor say exactly who they spoke to at Firebird (just say a Firebird Rep), gives no leads to follow either :-(

But the thinking that there simply were'nt the skilled A8 coders to hand makes sense and.indeed even if there were, there was'nt a big enough A8 market to justify a version, mores the shame.

[Mclaneinc]

eek, wrong post..

Edited March 6, 2015 by Mclaneinc

[Mclaneinc]

From the Elite Homepage care of co Elite designer Ian Bell

 

A demo for the Atari 8 bit version...Apparently written by them..

 

Also found an xex as will

c1061100.zip

elitebbc.xex

Edited March 6, 2015 by Mclaneinc

[Heaven/TQA]

Wasn't the demo written by wratchchild?

[Mclaneinc]

Pass, its ended up on the Elite official site as theirs by accident then..

[Lost Dragon]

The link to the site is much appreciated.I've sent Ian an email to see how the A8 demo ended up on there, i'll report back on anything that comes up.

[+Tillek]

I would have killed to have that on my A8... Alas though, I was at some computer show once, and while there was almost nothing there for Atari, I found a table where a guy had some Atari software he was clearing out... He did have a copy of Elite for the ST, which I grabbed immediately.

 

But how times have changed....

 

http://www.elitedangerous.com/

[JamesD]

I can believe the Atari programmers left to work somewhere else but the part about the Atari version being too good sounds like Atari folklore.
No company would put money into a product and cancel it because it was too good.

While the part about no good Atari programmers is plausible, I think if they really wanted it finished they could have found someone.

I'd guess they evaluated what had been done and decided not to proceed for multiple reasons.
Picking up some other programmer's work and finishing it can be more difficult than writing it over from scratch.
If the Atari code was poorly commented or if any of the source was not left behind by the programmers it would be unusable.

The Atari version may have needed to be disk based and a large part of the Atari market didn't have disk drives where disk drives were common with Apple II users.
Remember that Elite came out in late 1984. The Atari version was probably started around that time as a followup.
The Atari ST and Amiga came out in the first half of 1985. The XE line was announced at the same time as the ST but wasn't available until late in the year.
If the Atari 8 bit programmers bailed in 1985 and the future of the Atari 8 bit was even partially in question... why support it?

Ultimately, they decided the Atari market didn't justify the additional cost to finish it.
It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out the Atari programmers left so they could develop for the ST.

[TMR]

I can believe the Atari programmers left to work somewhere else but the part about the Atari version being too good sounds like Atari folklore.

No company would put money into a product and cancel it because it was too good.

The version of the story i heard "back in the day" was that Acornsoft had insisted on a clause in the license that said the BBC version had to be superior to all others. That is most likely just rubbish and i forget if it came from someone who could potentially know (as a somewhat naive teen i visited both Firebird and a small dev house on the south east coast whilst trying to sell C64 code) or was just doing the rounds, but at the time it sort of made sense because Elite was one of Acornsoft's flagship games.

[Lost Dragon]

Not A8 related, but in interview with Maximum mag ( i think) Capcom were quite blunt regarding the issues they had, developing for the Saturn, saying they felt SEGA were keeping all the best development tools for themselves (and as a result Capcom could'nt get the best out of the Twin SH2 chips, where as SEGA could) as they felt Sega wanted to give the impression their in-house products were superior to that of 3rd parties.

So it's not the 1st time i've heard claims of industry snobbery as it were, 'best' versions being wanted kept within very strict limits.

Loving the insights that others have raise here so far, adds good few layers to that Mailbag in Atari User....

[Rybags]

http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/demos/

 

Ian Bell's site gives credit to Mark for the demo creation for Atari.

Really, if there was an Atari version made with any progress in the day I think it would have come to light now. Not necessarily a program find, but at least someone speaking up and shedding some truth on the matter.

[Lost Dragon]

I'm with Rybags on this one at this point.You'd have expected someone to have at least listed it on their C.V by now or mentioned it somewhere as it's hardly something to be ashamed of....

 

Atari User Magazines track record is'nt exactly faultless either when it comes to reporting....i actually emailed the writer who claimed he'd seen Adam Caveman RUNNING at an Atari show (again there, classic case of..if there really was anything other than those 'mock-up'?screens used in the advert), think we'd of heard a lot more about it by now...

 

Fact they could'nt name the coders, nor who exactly they spoke to at Firebird, puts doubts on the validity of the claims in my eyes, cynical as they've become to what's been written in the press over the years.

[Mclaneinc]

I wonder who did the xex I posted or is that also from Mark?

 

As for Adam caveman, never heard of it in my life and its fair to say I've seen most things one way or another, never even seen adverts for it..

Edited March 7, 2015 by Mclaneinc

[Lost Dragon]

The Adam Caveman adverts that appeared in likes of ZZap64 and Atari User Magazines at the time can be found here:

 

http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/wp-content/uploads/gtw64/a/adam-caveman/scan-adamcaveman.jpg

 

As for claims Atari user's writer saw it running at the Atari Show he was, cough...reporting from, i call B.S on that one.

[Mclaneinc]

Lol...I don't remember that advert and I used to write for Atari User back then..

 

Shame, with Ron Rosen as a coder it could have been a fun game..

 

I've gone through both my C64 and Atari stash of stuff and not a peep, judging by there only being one screen shot / mock up I definitely go with it being a game idea that never happened, back then even pre release demo's made their way to the dark side en masse so the chances of it actually being real code is in the 5% chance at best..

 

Also as neither a n Atari or C64 demo / alpha got spread its really really unlikely it ever really existed..

 

As said, I liked all the stuff Ron did, ok they were mostly similar but fun games..

Edited March 7, 2015 by Mclaneinc

[Mclaneinc]

It also shows that Andre wasn't too clued up as these titles were more like relaunched as Databyte had only acquired the UK rights to publish them after their initial US launch. I remember being at that show and vaguely remember Polar Pierre being displayed when I went past but not the Caveman title as it would have been something Atari that I had not seen before one way or another..

 

Edit:

 

I've found contact details for Ron Rosen and have emailed them hoping he's still with us, so there may be an answer in the end..

Edited March 7, 2015 by Mclaneinc

[José Pereira]

There's other game from them with that same page type advert with screen(s). I remember it has buildings and if I'm correct the hero it's a spy.

It's the same saying Atari and Commodore release and looks very nice but again nothing on the two.

You can find talkings of Caveman and this one also on GTW64 (Games That Weren't).

Maybe there were more... Anyone knows or ever tried to contact Rosen? Could anything happened to him back then and all his games, the last ones are lost forever or weren't begun?

 

P.s.- Isn't there also a rumour for a Spy VS Spy IV that would be played in space/planet scene(s)?

Databyte wasn't also one of the companies that had rights to the MAD and First Star Rockford and the black&white spies?

[Lost Dragon]

Any findings/answers would be most appreciated by myself and GTW, my 'contacts' (ie people i've interviewed) were once in touch with the Databyte chap, but seems he's gone dark and stayed that way for past few years...so dead end there :-( .

It's my thinking that if the featured screen was anything more than a mock-up, code would have been 'found' and they'd of had enough to at least do a running demo etc for trade shows.To myself it screams of being similar to ZX Spectrum Toki screens..generated for the press....

In this case i'm guessing marketing simply needed something to put in the adverts to generate interest, so this screen was knocked-up, passed onto marketing and bingo, ads booked in advance for game that never was.

Be nice to put the story to bed though.

[Lost Dragon]

@José Pereira:The spy game, with buildings in background? i remember that advert, think it was 'Mumbles:Super Spy', though might be off on the name.Don't think that ever appeared either on C64...

[Lost Dragon]

@José Pereira :Here you go:Mumbles Advert etc, plus what happened to Spy Vs Spy 4...

 

 

http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/mumbles-superspy/

 

http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/spy-vs-spy-4/