Miscellaneous

Frontier: First Encounters - Adverts

These are scans of both sides of an advertising sheet for the US version of First Encounters, prior to its release in 1995

Elite & Frontier - Games

This is a photo of all the Elite and Frontier games I have managed to get my hands on over the years. There are some pretty obscure versions of Elite in there.
Click the picture for a giant view, or click here to see a big picture with each version identified

For years I believed that Frontier First Encounters was only released in three languages - English, French & German. Until, that is, I came across an Italian version of the game, with the printed material also produced in that language.
Click the picture for a much bigger version...

There were several variations on the English language release of FFE. Click on the picture above left to see the back of the box for the French version, above right for the German version and below left for the Italian version

The original Elite was also released in a number of languages. Click below left to see the box for the Italian version of Nintendo Elite, or click below right for the first page of the manual.

Frontier Elite II t-shirt

When Frontier: Elite II was released in 1993 there was a card included within the pack which offered the player the opportunity to purchase a Frontier t-shirt. The card is pictured left and shows that the shirt was available in one size only - Extra Large - for the sum of £9.99

This is the t-shirt itself, showing the familiar Frontier logo on the black cotton material. It is a good quality garment.

Elite - Tatung Einstein home computer

Thanks to the numerous emulators available today, it is possible to play every version of Elite on a modern PC - except one. The Tatung Einstein home computer had a good version of Elite written for it by Merlin Software but the only Einstein emulator currently available crashes when it tries to run the game, apparently due to the copy protection on the disc.
Finding this quite annoying, I got hold of an Einstein on eBay purely to run the game. At the moment the only way I can find to get screenshots is to photograph the monitor - which gives poor quality results - but I'm going to figure out a way of improving this.

Elite was released with great fanfare for the niche machine that was the Tatung Einstein in June of 1987. Click on the image to the right to read the complete 2+ page review of Elite in Tatung Einstein User magazine, dated June 1987

Astronomy - Greenwich Meridian

This is obviously my pride and joy; a personalised certificate from the Royal Greenwich Observatory, confirming my presence on the Prime Meridian at the time and date specified. All this for a mere £1

Elite Gathering, Nottingham - October 2009

At the gathering to celebrate 25 years of Elite, origami sheets for Elite ships were handed out. I managed to get mine signed by David Braben, Ian Bell, Mark Bolitho (origami expert) and Rob Holdstock. Click to the top image to the left to see this.

The bottom image shows a short account by Mark of how Elite origami almost made it into the game packages for the non-Acornsoft releases.

Micro Mart Issue 1076 - October 2009

Micro Mart is a UK-based weekly computer magazine. In October 2009 they printed an article celebrating the 25th anniversary of Elite. Within that article is an image from FrontierAstro showing the complete BBC disc Elite package

Space Shuttle Launch - November 2009

Space shuttle Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center at 1929hrs (UT) on the 16th November 2009. Its mission was to deliver parts to the International Space Station, including a spare gyroscope.

This video was filmed with an iPhone from Titusville on the eastern Florida coast, approximately 11 miles from the launch site.