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Wow, look at this - it’s Revs on the #BBCMicro with telemetry, a track view showing all the other drivers, and brand new tracks! What wizardry is this? 🤯 Well done @racesimcentral.net, this looks epic. #simracing #retrogaming

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Wow! That’s amazing. Great job, it’s so good to see Revs getting some love.

Very cool! So, the million dollar question… what are you planning to do with it now? 😀

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Oh wow, is someone making new tracks for Revs? That’s extremely cool. 😀 Do you have any more information you can share? Looks amazing…

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That was where this whole project started! I’d always wanted to understand the split screen and I couldn’t find anything that explained it in a way I understood, so when I stumbled on @kieranhj.bsky.social’s buildable source code, that’s the bit I started analysing. I guess I just didn’t stop! 🤣

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I hope you enjoy them; they were certainly fun to work on. And remember, it's now official: playing 8-bit Elite is academic research. Back to school, everyone! 😀

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Paper 2 explores the epic Saturn loading screen, a mathematical work of art Fairbank, Michael and Moxon, Mark (2026) Analysing the Saturn Loading Screen from the Classic Computer Game: Elite. In: IEEE Conference on Games, 2026-09-01 - 2026-09-04, Madrid Free download: repository.essex.ac.uk/43578/

The first page of the paper on the Saturn loading screen

The Saturn from the loading screen in the cassette version of BBC Micro Elite

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Paper 1 investigates the maths behind the rotating planets, and their glorious craters and meridians Fairbank, Michael and Moxon, Mark (2026) The Rotating Planets in the Classic Game: Elite. In: IEEE Conference on Games, 2026-09-01 - 2026-09-04, Madrid Free download: repository.essex.ac.uk/43577/

The first page of the paper on the rotating planets

The planet Leesti in Elite, showing a crater

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Two bona fide academic papers on #BBCMicro Elite have just been presented at the IEEE Conference on Games in Madrid I'm a co-author, alongside Michael Fairbank from the University of Essex They're a great read! And free to download Details in thread… #retrogaming #retrocomputing #elitedangerous

The papers, listed on the IEEE CoG website at https://cog2026.org/acceptedpapers

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Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Yeah, good old Teletext Elite. Definitely one of my favourite hacks! Still makes me smile every time I fire it up. 😀 Mode 7 for the win!

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Yeah, on the Beeb the game’s name uses double height character 141 in teletext. A number that’s burned into my soul! No teletext on the Elk, so no double-height character 141, sadly.

Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

And no double-height text either, as that’s a teletext thing. But it was still the Acornsoft loading screen, so you knew you were in for some high-quality gaming!

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Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

For #BBCMicro fans, the mode 7 teletext Acornsoft loading screen is iconic So I've been adding customised versions to some of my more sophisticated Elite hacks That's better - I should have done this ages ago! See elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/ for more hacking goodness #retrocomputing #acorn

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Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

For me too. Though you probably spotted that already. 😀

Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Thank you! That article is a bit long, but hopefully it’s an interesting read. It was certainly an interesting project 😀

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If that’s the case, you’ve definitely got to make room for Angus Duggan in there, too. The way he created Elite-A by hacking into the original game back in the 1980s was beyond belief! And with such elegant results, too. You are very kind though. 😊

If you do, here are some of my other Elite hacks: Elite Compendium elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/elite_... Elite Universe Editor elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/elite_... Teletext Elite elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/telete... Elite 3D elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/elite_... Until next time, Commanders! 🫡 (10/10)

Thargoid-based combat in two-player Elite

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I’m indebted to the Acorn team at @tnmoc.bsky.social who tried out the game and helped me track down some of the gnarlier bugs Although there will definitely be some issues left, it’s so complicated If you spot anything, let me know and I’ll see what I can do to fix it I hope you like it! (9/10)

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It’s worth mentioning that this project is 100% AI-free, like all my projects I use a very minimal development environment and I hand-code absolutely everything The source code includes all the modifications I’ve made in this hack, and it’s all fully documented, both on-site and in-source (8/10)

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The game requires a 6502 Second Processor fitted to a BBC Micro or BBC Master It supports the keyboard, joysticks, and all the buttons on the Delta 14B For one human player, you only need your computer For two human players, you’ll need at least one joystick Twin joysticks are great fun! (7/10)

Twin Delta 14B joysticks and BBC Micro B+, signed by David Braben

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You can also choose from the following: * Four types of lasers * Three types of energy unit * Missiles * Anti-missile E.C.M. And your fight can be to the death, or the first to reach a specific number of hits The latter is great fun and brings a whole new challenge to one-on-one combat (6/10)

Fighting as a Thargoid in two-player Elite

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Two-player Elite lets you choose each player’s ship from: * Cobra Mk III * Python * Anaconda * Viper * Sidewinder * Mamba * Krait * Moray * Thargoid Bigger ships are easier to hit, while smaller ones are a lot sneakier And, at last, you can choose to be a Thargoid, if that’s your bag (5/10)

The configuration screen in two-player Elite

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If you don’t have a human to hand, don’t panic: two-player Elite’s “AI Pilot” mode uses the game’s normal tactics routines to give you a proper deep-space fight for one For those of us who grew up playing the original Elite, it’s finally a chance to see things from the enemy’s perspective! (4/10)

An incoming missile for player 2 in two-player Elite

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I have also written an extensive article about how I hacked a second player into BBC Elite: elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/two-pl... It’s a very long read (15,000+ words!), but I wanted to explain everything properly This is my most complex Elite hack to date, so there’s an awful lot to cover… (3/10)

The game over screen in two-player Elite

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Here are the links: About two-player Elite elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/two-pl... Downloads elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/two-pl... Instructions elite.bbcelite.com/hacks/two-pl... Play in a browser (press F10 to play) bbc.xania.org?coProcessor=... Code repository github.com/markmoxon/el... (2/10)

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Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I am thrilled to announce the release of my latest Elite hack: Two-player Elite for the #BBCMicro This is the original 1980s Acornsoft Elite, but with split-screen, two-player, deep-space combat See the thread for links, downloads and details (1/10) #retrocomputing #retrogaming #elitedangerous

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Hopefully it will live up to expectations... 😀 I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out, so fingers crossed!

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Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Status check for two-player #BBCMicro Elite: Development… [Done] Testing… [Done] Website… [Done] Technical deep dive… [Overdone] Code repository… [Done] Document all mods… [Done] Confirm date… [Done] Releasing this Thursday, 3 September Get your twin joysticks ready! #retrogaming #retrocomputing

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Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I love it when projects include side quests Two-player #BBCMicro #Elite (releasing next week) was having Delta 14B joystick issues, so I built a test tool This proved the hardware was bad, not the code (phew!) And I've released the code for others to use A fun detour! github.com/markmoxon/de...

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Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

This is brilliant - it’s a conversion of David Braben’s classic game Lander for the Game Boy Advance. github.com/jmcd/lander-... Do yourself a favour and read John’s project explanation in the README. It’s fascinating! Exceptional stuff. 👏 #retrocomputing #retrogaming #arm #archimedes #gameboy

github.com

GitHub - jmcd/lander-gba

Contribute to jmcd/lander-gba development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Luckily in two-player Elite you can set one of the players to be the computer. So as a minimum you only need one human. 😀

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And as more and more Beeb emulators support Econet, this should mean everyone can have a go at multiplayer Elite without needing a home network. But these are long-term plans… for now, it’s two players on one machine. That was difficult enough! 😀

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One day, I hope so. This project is about two players sharing one machine, but the underlying maths will hopefully feed into a more multi-machine setup, connected by Econet, for example. That’s the plan, anyway!

Thank you, it’s certainly turning out to be fun to play. Looking forward to getting this out there!

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Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Two-player Elite on the #BBCMicro is finally feature-complete. Phew, that was a long road! Got a few bugs to fix, but the Acorn team at @tnmoc.bsky.social have road-tested and given it a thumbs up, so that's a good sign. September release, I hope... #retrocomputing #retrogaming #8bit #elite

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Hi James, just letting you know that I've updated the documentation for the GetObjectDistance routine with your excellent observation: revs.bbcelite.com/source/main/... and I have added you to the acknowledgements page: revs.bbcelite.com/about_site/a... Thanks again for pointing this out! 😀

revs.bbcelite.com

The GetObjectDistance subroutine - Revs on the BBC Micro

Annotated code for the GetObjectDistance subroutine in Revs

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Mark Moxon @markmoxon.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Two years ago I released Elite 3D - the #BBCMicro classic, in anaglyph 3D (for red-and-cyan glasses) But I failed to give the project a repository, so here it is, only 22 months late: github.com/markmoxon/el... So you now can see every change I made to Elite to drag it into the third dimension 🚀

github.com

GitHub - markmoxon/elite-3d: Anaglyph 3D version of the classic BBC Micro game Elite

Anaglyph 3D version of the classic BBC Micro game Elite - markmoxon/elite-3d

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Not sure I can handle the flak from adding a random “I quit” button to the keypad. 🤣 Rage-quit or shit-I’m-supposed-to-be-working-quit, no problem, just hit COPY then ESCAPE. WTF-was-that?-quit… not so sure. 😀

Perhaps I’ll just get it to print an in-flight message saying, “DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON”…

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Ha! 🤣 Well, to be 100% accurate, there is still one button that I haven’t found a use for, as everything is already covered. Bottom row, middle button - currently does nothing. Reserved for future expansion, perhaps! 😀

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Two-player #BBCMicro Elite has just become the first game ever to support all the buttons on twin Delta 14B joysticks So two players can dogfight in Elite without either of them needing the keyboard For some of us, this is a dream come true! And it justifies all this hardware I keep buying... 😀

Key legend for the Delta 14B in two-player Elite

One Delta 14B joystick and the 14B/1 adaptor box

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Too true. 😀 I'll accept moving on to ARM as a sensible step, as it retains the beautiful simplicity of the 6502 but adds a delightful elegance of its own (up to the ARM3, anyway, which I think is peak ARM). You can keep the rest. 🤣

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