Mark Moxon

Sometimes it's the small projects that are the most enjoyable.

Case in point: this month I'm building !EliteNet, which connects the #Archimedes version of #Elite to the Econet multiplayer scoreboard, so ArcElite players can compete against #BBCMicro players.

I last wrote a RISC OS application in 1995. That's 30 years ago! Turns out that BBC BASIC V is still a great language to code in.

And I've never written a RISC OS relocatable module before, so even now, this old dog is learning new ARM-based tricks.

And… ArcElite! ❤️

I absolutely love this hobby.

#retrogaming #retrocomputing #riscos

Apr 19 at 8:53pmWeb
Show threadvga256Apr 19
@markmoxon what an absolutely wicked idea. i hadn't heard of econet before - what a cool programming project!
Show threadMark MoxonApr 19

@vga256 Thank you! Econet is great - it’s a simpler network from simpler times, and is all the more enjoyable because of it.

If you want to know more about my project, here’s a link:

https://elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/elite_over_econet.html

Elite over Econet - Elite on the 6502

Details of Elite over Econet

Show threadvga256Apr 19
@markmoxon awesome - looking forward to having a read!
Show threadWintermute_BBSApr 19
@markmoxon got to get that old RPi 1B+ ready with RiscOS so I can test it...
Show threadMark MoxonApr 19

@Wintermute_BBS I love firing up my RPi 1 for a bit of modern retro RISC OS! Does Elite work on RISC OS 5? I’ll have to check, I thought it might be 24-bit only… but if it does, I bet it goes like a bat out of hell!

Even if it doesn’t, it’s always a good idea to take the old RPi 1 out for a spin. 😀

Show threadWintermute_BBSApr 20

@markmoxon there's an article on the web describing the steps required to get Elite running. it involves the ArcEm emulator for RiscOS

EDIT: There's an article in #MagPi iussue no. 13 about how to get it done.

Show threadMark MoxonApr 20

@Wintermute_BBS Found it, thanks! Good to see it can be done, even if it isn’t a native RO5 version. I’ve never really thought of running ArcEm on RISC OS tbh - I use it all the time on my PC, but of course there’s a RO version too. Very clever.

That said, neither ArcEm nor the Pi support Econet, so unfortunately this won’t let you join the scoreboard - for that you need a real Econet-enabled machine. BeebEm is the only emulator I know that emulates Econet, but that’s obviously BBC-only - it works well, though:

https://elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/elite_over_econet_in_an_emulator.html

The Econet requirement makes it all a bit niche! But Beebs don’t do Ethernet out of the box, so “Elite over Econet” it is…

Playing Elite over Econet in an emulator - Elite on the 6502

How to set up BeebEm with an emulated Econet network that runs Elite

Show threadWintermute_BBSApr 20

@markmoxon Hmm, in that case I may just set up an emulated machine on my Linux box and take that road - see: it's that version of the game I'm after, not neccessarily the hardware itself.

But I found out about "RiscOS Direct" for Raspberry Pi which is an "all-in" distro of RiscOS 5.3 with lots of stuff pre-installed.

That's not to say that it will run Elite, but it may be worth taking a look at just out of curiosity.

EDIT: guess what? It does run Elite - see here (at 11:35 play time):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjyCOj_WEOU&list=PL8Ltmk_Xax1paNYu8nYrSzIvj2iYDrozU

RISC OS Direct EP3 - Gaming & Emulation

YouTube
Show threadMark MoxonApr 20

@Wintermute_BBS That looks pretty good! I need to update RISC OS on my Pi, might be worth just going for the latest Direct package instead. Thanks for the suggestion.

I’m a diehard RISC OS 2 and 3.10 fan, really, but it’s always fun to see where the OS is going…

Show threadRob\Viewdata UKApr 20
@markmoxon @Wintermute_BBS
Related, should be noted that BeebEm's econet will talk to real Acorn machines with econet-over-ethernet connections (i.e. talking AUN) on the same LAN as the PC running the emulator. Indeed, I wrote the econet code by making it talk to an A5000 running L4 fileserver.
Show threadMark MoxonApr 21
@robert @Wintermute_BBS it works very well, too - I use it for spinning up multiple test machines to simulate multiplayer Elite, and it very happily sends scores to my real Econet network (and receives them too). It’s very handy indeed!
Show threadjonyesnoApr 19
@markmoxon “small project” :) keep up the great work!
Show threadDavid S (inactive)Apr 20
@markmoxon hey! How did you get the names of all of the computers in my house? :)
Show threadMark MoxonApr 20
@Pionir More to the point, when did all the computers in your house decide to start playing multiplayer Elite? 😀
Show threadDavid S (inactive)Apr 23
@markmoxon Around 1988