Apple II Elite Information

Elite was converted to the Apple II computer by Ian Bell and released by Firebird in 1986. It was released on floppy disk and had the full set of classic Elite ships. Unlike some other versions of Elite, the Apple II version was shipped in its own dedicated box, with the manual and quick key control guide also specific to the machine.

This version of Elite certainly benefited from the two-year interval since the first BBC version was released in 1984, sporting a colourful screen and fast-moving wireframe graphics. It was also a shrewd move by Firebird to have the game converted to the Apple, as this was a particularly popular machine in the USA in the 1980s. There was no cassette tape edition of this version; by the time Elite was released in the US, the Apple II had effectively become disc-only.

The Apple II version of Elite was released in time to include entry to the Order of Elite competition, in the same way as the US edition of the Commodore 64/128 version. The Observers Guide To Ships In Service, contained within the manual, referenced 18 different ship types, as the disc loading and larger memory of the Apple computer could permit this.

As with the other 8-bit versions of Elite, there were a few changes to the key layout, as indicated here in the Quick Key Control Guide.

One curious inclusion in the retail box was an addendum, to cover two issues relating to Elite players on the Apple II.
The first covered save games, and recommended switching the game disc with a blank DOS disc for this purpose. This would appear to be a solution to the problem of players accidentally overwriting their game disc with fresh data.
The second issue was a solution to the fact that the AppleII+ displayed text in upper case, which could result in corruption of the information screens in the game.

Playing Apple II Elite on your PC

1. Download an Apple emulator, such as AppleWin
2. Download the game from Ian Bell's Elite Page