Elite was written in 1984 by David Braben and Ian Bell for the BBC Microcomputer, and has since been ported over to the C64, Apple II, NES, Spectrum, MSX, PC, & more. Basically, the game consists of you flying from world to world, killing pirates, upgrading your ship, and trading/smuggling goods. Damn good fun.

There is a newer version of the game called Elite Plus that was released in 1991 and was programmed by Chris Sawyer. Both titles have been released into the public domain and can be downloaded at

www.iancgbell.clara.net/clara.net/i/a/n/iancgbell/webspace/elite/pc/index.htm

A rationalised justification for the accidental power position of any ruling group. As Nietzsche observed, any group of people who suddenly find themselves in a position of power will seek to maintain this by defining their arbitrary values and skills as 'good' (while the values and skills of the dispossessed are defined as 'bad'). Thus the ruling elite emerge as the 'best of a society' or Aristocracy, by circular formation.

In response the dispossessed will often react by defining their 'oppressors' (even benign ones) as 'evil', and their opposite (themselves) as 'good', Thus an inverted 'moral' elite can emerge amongst the masses. See Beyond Good and Evil.

Further than this in the dialectic between these two positions various other types of elite emerge, for instance the elite of a professional body.

Elitism is often produced by insecurity and lack of ego strength.

This kind of analysis can of course lead to either a conservative pragmatism or a mediocre, levelling, socially collective egalitarianism in which all values are relative and authentic individualism is surpressed. However some (including Nietzsche) argue this problem can be overcome by a self-creating, open elitism, where achievement (by ones own lights) and mutual assistance form the basis of an ever expanding elite which eventually collapses itself (through leaving no non-elites outside). The remainder being an individualist egalitarian society of greater achievement.

:-)
Elite

A brand of Israeli candy that is damn good. The line includes various milk chocolate bars and assortments as well as gum, gum drops, jelly beans, soup mandel, etc. Elite is also kosher (dairy or parve) and comes in diabetic-friendly sugarless forms.

Other fellow kosher snack and candy companies include Osem, Paskez, and Rokeach.

As Thrunt wrote, Elite was written by David Braben and Ian Bell in 1984 for the BBC Microcomputer in their spare time while they were both attending Cambridge University.

Other than the original BBC Micro version, Elite has appeared on the following platforms:

Elite spawned two ill-fated sequels which David Braben worked on and Ian Bell disowned, Frontier (Elite II) and Frontier: First Encounters (Elite III, I bought a copy), both published by GameTEK. There is a fourth Elite game rumored to be in the works at David Braben's company, Frontier Developments. Most of these games can now be downloaded for free from the Elite Club (http://www.eliteclub.co.uk/) and a few teams of fans are working on single- and multi-player remakes.


On a more personal note, my first exposure to the wonders of Elite was when I got the first PC version from Firebird around 1989. I wasted a good part of my childhood on that, usually playing as a pirate. My strategy was to sell my laser and a missile, scrape together enough for a fuel scoop then go and "reposess" some cargo. (Also, I'd never have to pay for fuel again thanks to sun-diving)

I didn't come across Elite Plus until about a decade later when a friend of mine and I stayed up all night reverse-engineering the save game format. What I liked most about the revamped version was that it improved the graphics significantly without marring the beauty and simplicity of the original.

elevator controller = E = ELIZA effect

elite adj.

Clueful. Plugged-in. One of the cognoscenti. Also used as a general positive adjective. This term is not actually native hacker slang; it is used primarily by crackers and warez d00dz, for which reason hackers use it only with heavy irony. The term used to refer to the folks allowed in to the "hidden" or "privileged" sections of BBSes in the early 1980s (which, typically, contained pirated software). Frequently, early boards would only let you post, or even see, a certain subset of the sections (or `boards') on a BBS. Those who got to the frequently legendary `triple super secret' boards were elite. Misspellings of this term in warez d00dz style abound; the forms `l337' `eleet', and `31337' (among others) have been sighted.

A true hacker would be more likely to use `wizardly'. Oppose lamer.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

É`lite" (?), n. [F., fr. élire to choose, L. eligere. See Elect.]

A choice or select body; the flower; as, the élite of society.

 

© Webster 1913


É`lite" (A`lEt"), n.

See Army organization, Switzerland.

 

© Webster 1913

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