That is really interesting. During the pre-internet days you only saw what you saw, so if your school friends were into Spectrum games and if you had BBC Micro

That is really interesting. During the pre-internet days you only saw what you saw, so if your school friends were into Spectrum games and if you had BBC Micro at school (and for the rich kids) then you did not see what was going on in the parallel universes of Atari and Commodore. Generally the Atari was considered a games console back then, not something to program. Commodore owners were also a different demographic, into different things. Braben and Bell were Cambridge University grade geniuses, in the UK's Silicon Fen, so they were probably exposed to a lot more than schoolkids like myself living in the countryside. So I now imagine they had a lot more influences, and, like all great artists, they 'stole' ideas from other platforms for their 'stolen ideas' to be as good as rocket science magic for the likes of myself. Elite on the BBC Micro was the best game ever until networked games came along. This is probably why I am not a gamer, I was not that impressed by consoles or PC games, they lacked the ambition of 'Elite'. Of course that has changed now but there was a step backwards for me.