Elite Dangerous is actually the 4th game in the series, which dates back to 1984 with the original Elite (written by David Braben and Ian Bell) for the BBC Microcomputer.
That original game fitted within the available 32kilobytes of RAM in that early 8 bit machine and featured revolutionary (for the time), vector graphics with hidden line removal, and a procedurally generated universe.
The first sequel, Frontier Elite 2, was written in 1993 for 16 bit machines such as the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and early PCs and attempted to simulate the entire galaxy on a single floppy disk.
1995 saw the introduction of Frontier First Encounters, which was released only for 32 bit PCs.
Much of the lore of those original games is referenced in Elite Dangerous, not least many of the famous ship types, notably the Cobra Mk3. The origins of the Federation, the Empire and Alliance can be traced back to these early games as well. Of course, dive deeper and you'll find the legends as well such as the Dark Wheel and Raxxla... but that's a story for another day.
