Solo's Elite/Oolite

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C64 Title Screen - nice SID tune

A Python with missile homing in

Fer-de-Lance with same problem

Who am I?
I live in North Dakota, USA. I am 65 and retired. I have three favorite pastimes now that I no longer work for a living: Golf and gardening from spring to fall, and computers pretty much all the time. My favorite computer interests are video games, designing golf courses (Jack Nicklaus GBC), graphic design, and writing poetry and fiction (short stories). Besides golf I enjoy watching baseball but am particularly fond of soccer (football according to some). Enjoyed last years World Cup (except for the vuvuzelas), and looking forward to the 2012 Euro Cup. What about the Mayan calendar thingy? Pffft!
I am married to a terrific lady who is 15 years younger than me. Her favorite pastime is beating me at golf.

North Dakota
Elite Description: Mainly Agricultural, Democracy, TL7. Human Colonials and Native Dakotaians whose land was stolen by the human colonials. This place is most notable for its inhabitants eccentric love for snow blowers.
Geography: Northern part of the vast prairie region which stretches from Alberta, Canada south to Texas east of the Rocky Mountains to about the Mississippi river. Well that is what it used to be before the arrival of those "human colonials".
Climate: Continental to the extreme. January mean temperature, -12 C and July, 22 C, with the occasional hot afternoon approaching 40 C. Annual precipitation varies from 30 cm in the west to 60 cm in the east.

Elite
Back in the early to mid 1980's (my favorite decade) I was introduced to computers at work. Shortly after, I purchased my first home computer, a Commodore 64, "the Breadbin". I did all sorts of things with it but I think one whole year was lost to playing Elite. I can't fully explain but there was something addictive about it. I was single at the time so whole nights, sometimes until dawn, were consumed playing this game. Many friday nights I would go to my local drinking establishment to socialize with friends then walk home about 1 in the morning and spend several hours blasting pirates and exploring the galaxies. In my opinion, Mr. Braben and Mr. Bell were bloody genius.

Elite Today
A few years ago I discovered the wonderful world of emulators. Currently, I have DOSbox for old DOS games, CCS64 for the even older C64, and NEStopia for the Nintendo Entertainment System. I have some version of Elite for all of them.

NES Elite title screen	NES Elite Commander screen	NES Elite planet info screen	NES Elite combat action

How I discovered Oolite
In February 2011, I googled, "Elite Galaxy Maps". I was curious if there was detailed info on Elite planets online. The listing refered me to something called Oolite. I checked it out and had to download the game. It is a winner, not only bringing back the nostalgia of the original but bringing the game up to date for modern computers.

My Oolite OXP's:
All the OXP's that I have done are listed on my Wiki page Here
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