Elite

Who can tell you anything about this immortal toy?
After all, the description does not contain most of the possibilities. For example, I found out how to hover in hyperspace quite by accident. But there are many different secrets there.
Has anyone found how to legally move to another galaxy system, without
correcting the shipment?
Who can describe to me the meaning of the bytes in the record for any disk version?

Those people who write new versions probably know all the hidden functions.
So why not tell everyone?

Any information on the subject is welcome, ANY!

p.s. Maybe someone found RAXXLA?

Salutations,
Roman.

It’s quiet outside the window, and I’m sitting and writing a response to a letter written from Roman Kuzmenkov to
All Mon Aug 18 1997 at 20:18...

RK> Who can tell you anything about this immortal toy?

Spectrophone and ZX-Review. In very large quantities. From the story by Robert Holdstock
(it seems correct), included in the Elite distribution kit, to the description of all (or
almost all) bells and whistles in Elite from Kladov.

With all sorts of regards and wishes.
Igor.

... Love helps to kill time. Time helps kill love.

Vyacheslav Mednonogov, having mustered up the courage, decided to write a letter to Roman
Kuzmenkov. Well, and then I arrived in time...

VM> the promised letter concerning the mysterious planet RAHXXLA. Its application is valid for the game *ELITE 2*
VM> (Novosibirsk), both cassette,
VM> and disk. Disk version
[.................]
Could someone upload this same *ELITE 2* and/or *ELITE 3* here? And then there is
ELITE-1, but I haven’t seen the 2nd and 3rd “elite”. :(

And the same to you... !!!

Alex Kolesnikov AKA Zer0 [Team Mira Furlan]
[Team Minbari Ambassador Delenn]

IG> Spectrophone and ZX-Review. In very large quantities. From the story by Robert
IG> Holdstock (it seems correct), included in the Elite distribution package, to
IG> descriptions of all (or almost all) bells and whistles in Elite from Kladov.

If I had these magazines or at least access to them, then I would not
ask.
Oh well, and in what rooms? And separately, in which issue was the article
Kladova?

Salutations,
Roman.

On a memorable date: Monday August 25, 1997 at 10:10
wrote 812/22.00 to Roman Kuzmenkov :

RK>> After all, most of the possibilities are not in the description. For example, I found how
RK>> to hover in hyperspace quite by accident. But there
RK>> there are many different secrets.
> 8-[ * ] Well, describe it. Interesting...
Before the hyper transition, press pause (CapsShift), then the "F" button, then
spacebar to return to game mode. And after the hypertransition you see the Targons in
hyperspace. On the map, it’s right in the middle between the planet you flew from and the one you were flying to. To return to the normal mode of hypertransitions,
do the same operations again.
> I found refueling near the stars,
> moved away from the planet at a speed exceeding J, but such...
Describe how you moved away at super-J speed?
> By the way, in the review also a cool (branded from Fire Bird!)
> short story about Elite was being published. It's called Dark Wheel.
RK>> Has anyone found how to legally move to another system
RK>> of galaxies, without correcting the shipment?
> It’s unlikely that this is possible. Just like the 49th galaxy in Rodionov's version...
And what is the 49th galaxy?
RK>> Who will describe to me the values ​​of the bytes in the record for any disk
RK>> version?
> Where to go, lookabove.
But still, not all bytes are known.
RK>> Those people who write new versions probably know all the hidden
RK>> functions.
> Are there such? There were rumors that even Kladov didn’t make a new one
> Elite just got the branded (c) Flash, it seems.
And the manufacturers?
RK>> So why not tell everyone?
> Oh! Shouldn't we ask Mr. Rodionov about his version?
> And in general, elitomanias, write!
> It's nice to see such a letter among a bunch of annoying letters
> with requests for new emuls.
> 2Igor Ovdin: Well, shake off the old days, huh?

Cheer up gentlemen!

Salutations,
Roman.

RK> If I had these magazines or at least access to them, then I would not
RK> ask.

They all went through the file. Look nearby (or on the servers of Netov's and Spekov's), there is probably one.

RK> Well, okay, but in which rooms? And separately, in which issue was
RK> Kladov’s article?

:) There was no Kladov’s article. There was his elite and its description from the flyer into it in, like, 5 and 6 numbers of the spectrophone.

01 Sep 97 00:27, Vyacheslav Mednonogov reported to Igor Gruzdev about {Elite}:

IG>> :) There was no article by Kladov. There was his elite and its description from the flyer in
VM> There was an interview with Kladov in zx-review. On the topic of how he defended his

Here is this article describing a terrible signature that cannot be reproduced
without special equipment (however, it somehow penetrates into backup copies :)

(from zx-review 4/94)

=== Cut ===
ELITE-3

IFK: We received a letter from Ho-
Vosibirsk from the author of the program
ELITE-2 by Vladimir Kladov (Shadow
Soft). As promised, we introduce our readers to him. The material
sent by him will undoubtedly interest
not only fans of this
wonderful game, but is also
an interesting continuation
of the conversation about Protection and Hacking.
CORR: From the author of ELITE-2, now
now renamed ELI-
TF-3. The latter differs little
from ELITE-2 in terms of gameplay,
and the description published in
ZХ-REVIEW AND 11-12 for 1993 is quite
consistent, except that detected errors have been corrected and a demonstrator has been added, launched from
DISK NENU.
The most important thing for the buyer
is that. that ELITE-3 is sold with
a built-in right to make one
copy, which may bereceived
immediately after purchase, on its
own media, and, therefore,
well compatible with it.
Further copies can be
made from the game disc after
every 256 successful flights.
The protection methods used in
this program may be
of interest to numerous Spectruma fans using
VETA disk interface.
1. The program is not
freely movable on the disk and is recorded on the first few tracks, formatted non-standardly.
2. One hundred percent protection from
the MAGIC button is provided by moving the stack to the top of
the screen.
3. All known methods of protection
you of bootloaders (overlapping all
memory, key protection, control
processing of decoders, use of the R register, interrupts,
stacking, etc.), as well as
some unknown ones, combined with each other and repeated
many times, so neither
an “honest” bootloader hack, nor a
“dishonest” method stopping with a special debugger does not produce practical
results.
In addition, the loading process
itself lasts 65 seconds, which does not cause any particular inconvenience to the end
user, but each new
hacking attempttakes a hacker
a lot of time.
4. The program has built-in control
for the presence of a rather narrow set of software and
hardware on the computer, which does not allow running the program under ROM
from 1990, for example. As a result,
on poorly compatible computers
("Pentagon", ATM-turbo") the program may not run - most often
this is due to improper management of the bus in terms of servicing
interrupts in IM2 mode. Modification of the computer in this case is necessary and can easily be carried out by a specialist.
5. The legitimacy of the copy and the counter
of successful flights are stored,
of course, on the disk, but are protected
by a signature, that is, by a special
function that depends on the specific
characteristics of the disk. Without knowledge
of this function, even if it is possible
to detect the location of this
information, it is impossible to change it,
without damaging the signature, which
is checked regularly. when
entering the DISK MENU. Such a check
, however, sometimes leads
to a “false alarm”,
but, in the worst case, on a legal
floppy it only resets the counter
of flights, but on an illegal copy
such a check makes
inoperable
No sector-by-sector
copier is capable of doing so.accurately
repeat the signature - for this
special equipment is required.
6. In order to give
the opportunity for everyone to have
a sufficient number of copies for the game, a procedure is built into
the program copying. It is called from DISK
MENU, and when called, it reports the copy
number, the number of copies made, the number of remaining
rights to copy from this disk. At the same time, if the right is available, a request is displayed, to which you must answer “Y” if you need to start copying. Copying
is always performed from disk
A to disk A, and in the process
it is necessary to alternately, at the request on the screen, insert the new disk
twice and, once again, the old one. Upon completion, a control
loading is performed from the resulting new copy.
A legally sold disc with
ELITE-3 necessarily has the right
of the first copy, and on each disc
with which further work is carried out, a counter of successful
flights is accumulated. After increasing the counter
by 256, another
right to make a copy from this
disk is acquired. And if the right has not yet been received, thenthe COPY procedure, when it
is called, reports how much time
is left to fly.

=== Cut ===

Warm greetings, Slava!

VM> (your own?) Elite. There he spread the fog that branded discs are written
VM> on special ones. equipment and only they will work correctly. Just Ilona
VM> Davydova :)

We picked its protection, the disc was actually recorded on a screwed up
disk drive.

Sincerely, Alex from FFC COMPUTERS.

VM>> There was an interview with Kladov in zx-review. On the topic of how he defended his
VM>> (his?) Elite. There he spread the fog that branded disks are written
VM>> on special ones. equipment and only they will work correctly. Straight Ilona
VM>> Davydova :)