Elite

Elite was first released for the popular BBC Microcomputer in 1984. The publisher was Acornsoft, who realised the ground-breaking nature of the game and the potential for huge sales. Initially, two versions were released; the cassette tape version and the disk version. The latter took advantage of the fact that new data could be quickly loaded into the computer's memory at certain points, thus enabling a greater variety of ships and space stations to be present in the game.
Missions were also available in the disk version, testing the pilot's skill to the limit

Elite was unique in many ways. It introduced the concept of a computer game with no definable end; there were tasks to be accomplished, missions to be taken, but the game itself was completely open-ended, offering the player the ability to proceed however he or she chose, with no guiding story line or sequence of events present.
Elite also introduced game saves, where the player's progress would be stored pending their return at a later date. This was dictated to a large degree by the nature of the game but was a welcome departure from the concept of playing a game through from start to finish, which still persists to this day in most games.

Following the inital release on the BBC and Electron home computers by Acornsoft the rights to publish Elite on other machines were sold to Firebird. The game was, over the next few years, released on numerous other systems, each versions varying according to the capability of the machine it was written for.

8-bit versions
BBC Computer
Acorn Electron
IBM PC / Elite Plus
Sinclair Spectrum
Commodore 64
Amstrad CPC
MSX
Tatung Einstein
Apple II
Nintendo NES

16-bit versions
Commodore Amiga
Atari ST
Acorn Archimedes