THE VIDEO SHELF · history of the game Elite
Elite: "The game that couldn't be written"
An hour-long video essay on Elite, the 1984 BBC Micro game by David Braben and Ian Bell. It covers how they fit a 3D engine, economy and universe into 22KB on a 2MHz 6502.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN commenters recommend it as an amazing overview of the technical feats and history behind Elite, and cite it for what the 6502 could do.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Alexander the ok
- Topic
- history of the game Elite
- Format
- documentary
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 3
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2024–2025
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Alexander the Ok, on youtube, has an amazing video on this. It is not quite as technical as the webiste for obvious reasons, but great overview and historical facts as well. [VIDEO]
hyperbrainer on Hacker News · 2025-02
In Elite on the 6502: The original 6502 assembly source, heavily commentedReposting an old comment[1] which may be of interest to Oolite players: > Elite: "The game that couldn't be written" > An hour long video essay about the classic game Elite, the BBC Micro, and how Elite was able to deliver an open-world 3D experience …
maxbond on Hacker News · 2024-04
In Oolite: An open source open-world space opera
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.