Oric computers
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Oric Atmos |
Oric-1 | |
Successor | Oric Stratos |
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Oric Atmos |
Oric was the name used by UK-based Tangerine Computer Systems for a series of 6502A-based home computers sold in the 1980s, primarily in Europe.
With the success of the ZX Spectrum from Sinclair Research, Tangerine's backers suggested a home computer and Tangerine formed Oric Products International Ltd to develop the Oric-1. The computer was introduced in 1982.[5] During 1983, approximately 160,000 Oric-1 computers were sold in the UK, plus another 50,000 in France (where it was the year's top-selling machine). This resulted in Oric being acquired and given funding for a successor model, the 1984 Oric Atmos.
Oric was bought by Eureka, which produced the less successful Oric Telestrat (1986). Oric was dissolved the year the Telestrat was released. Eastern European legal clones of Oric machines were produced into the 1990s.
Models
Oric-1
Based on a 1 MHz
The Oric-1 has a sound chip, the programmable General Instrument AY-3-8910.
Two graphics modes are handled by a semi-custom
The system has a built-in
Technical details
- MHz
- Operating system: Tangerine/Microsoft Extended Basicv1.0
- ROM: 16 KB
- RAM: 16 KB / 48 KB
- Sound: AY-3-8912
- Graphics: 40×28 text characters/ 240×200 pixels, 8 colours
- Storage: tape recorder, 300 and 2400 baud
- Input: integrated keyboard
- Connectivity: Tape recorder I/O, Centronics compatible printer port, RGB video out, RF out, expansion port
- Voltage: 9 V
- Power consumption: Max 600 milliamps
Oric Atmos
In late 1983 the funding cost for continued development of Oric caused external funding to be sought, and eventually led to a sale to Edenspring Investments PLC.
Soon after the Atmos was released, the modem, printer and 3-inch floppy disk drive originally promised for the Oric-1 were announced and released by the end of 1984. A short time after the release of the Atmos machine, a modification for the Oric-1 was issued and advertised in magazines and bulletin boards. This modification enabled the Oric-1 user to add a second ROM (containing the Oric Atmos system) to a spare ROM-socket on the Oric-1 circuit board. Then, using a switch, the users could then switch between the new Oric Atmos ROM and the original Oric-1 ROM. This was desirable since the updated ROM of the Atmos contained breaking changes for some games which relied on certain behaviours or memory addresses within the ROM. This led to tape based software often containing a 1.1 ROM/Atmos version of the software on one side of the cassette, with a 1.0 ROM/Oric-1 version on the other. Earlier titles from publishers that no longer existed or had stopped producing software for the Oric were unlikely to be updated.
Oric Stratos and Oric Telestrat
Although the Oric Atmos had not turned around Oric International's fortunes, in February 1985, they announced several models including the Oric Stratos/IQ164. Despite their backers putting them into receivership the following day, Oric was bought by French company Eureka, which continued to produce the Stratos, followed by the Oric Telestrat in late 1986.
The Stratos and Telestrat increased the RAM to 64 KB and added more ports, but kept the same processor and graphics and sound hardware as the Oric-1 and Atmos.
The Telestrat is a telecommunications-oriented machine. It comes with a disk drive as standard, and only connects to an RGB monitor / TV. The machine is backward compatible with the Oric-1 and Oric Atmos by using a cartridge. Most of the software is in French, including Hyper-BASIC's
In December 1987, after announcing the Telestrat 2, Oric International went into receivership for the second and final time.
Technical specification
Keyboard
The keyboard has 57 moving keys with tactile feedback. It is capable of full upper and lower case with a correctly positioned space bar. It has a full typewriter pitch. The key layout is a standard QWERTY with ESC, CTRL, RETURN and additional cursor control keys. All keys have auto repeat.
Display
The display adapter will drive a
Character mode
In character mode the Oric displays 28 lines of 40 characters, producing a display very similar to Teletext. The character set is standard ASCII which is enhanced by the addition of 80 user-definable characters. ASCII characters may also be re-defined as these are down loaded into RAM on power-up. Serial attributes are used to control display features, as in Teletext, and take up one character position. All remaining characters on that line are affected by the serial attribute until either the line ends or another serial attribute.
Display features are:
- Select background colour (paper) from one of eight.
- Select foreground colour (ink) from one of eight.
- Flash characters on and off approximately twice a second.
- Produce double height characters (even line top, odd line bottom).
- Switch over to user-definable character set. This feature is used to produce Teletext-style colour graphics without the need for additional RAM.
Available colours are black, blue, red, magenta, green, cyan, yellow, and white.
Each character position also has a parallel attribute, which may be operated on a character by character basis, to produce video inversion. The display has a fixed black border.
Screen graphics mode
The graphics mode consists of 200 pixels vertically by 240 pixels horizontally plus 3 lines of 40 characters (the same as character mode) at the bottom of the screen to display system information and to act as a window on the user program while still viewing the graphics display. It can also be used to input direct commands for graphics and see the effect instantly without having to switch modes. The graphics display operates with serial attributes in the same way as characters, except that the display is now considered as 200 lines by 40 graphics cells. Each graphic cell is therefore very flexible by having 8 foreground and 8 background colours and flashing patterns. The video invert parallel attribute is also usable in this mode. ASCII characters may be painted over the graphics area, thus enabling the free mixing of graphics and text.
Sound
The Oric has an internal loudspeaker and amplifier and can also be connected to external amplifiers via the 7 Pin DIN 45329 shared with the cassette interface. A
For BASIC programs, four keywords generate pre-made sounds: PING
, SHOOT
, EXPLODE
, and ZAP
. The commands SOUND
, MUSIC
, and PLAY
produce a broader range of sounds.
Cassette interface
The cassette recorder connects via a 7 PinDIN 45329 socket shared with the external sound output. The interface includes support for tape motor control. Recording speeds offered as standard are 300 baud or 2400 baud. A tone leader allows tape recorders' automatic level control to stabilise before the filename, followed by the actual data with parity; finally, checksums are recorded to allow overall verification of the recording.
The circuit was designed using a Schmitt trigger to remove noise and make input more reliable. The system allows for verification of stored information against the tape copy, to ensure integrity before the information is flushed from memory. There was however a bug within the error-checking of recorded programs, often causing user-created programs to fail when loaded back in, this bug persist in the updated ROMs for the Oric Atmos.
Available basic commands are CLOAD, CSAVE (for programs and memory dumps), STORE, RECALL (for arrays of string, integer or real, added with Oric Atmos roms). Filenames up to 16 characters can be specified. Options on the commands exist for slow speed, verification, autorunning of programs or specification of start and ending addresses for dumping memory.
Expansion port
The expansion port allows full access to the CPU's data address and control lines. This allows connection of add-ons specifically designed for the Oric, including user designed hardware. The range of lines exposed allows external ROM and RAM expansion, thus allowing for ROM cartridges or for expansion devices to internally include the required operating software on ROM.
Printer port
The printer port is compatible with the then standard
Peripherals
Colour plotter
Tangerine's MCP-40 is a
Prestel adaptor
The Prestel adaptor produced by Eureka (Informatika) was the first adaptor produced for the Oric-1 and Oric Atmos computers. However this adaptor was only furnished with very limited software.[citation needed]
Clones
The Atmos was licensed in Yugoslavia and sold as Nova 64.[3] The clones were Atmos-based, the only difference being the logo indicating ORIC NOVA 64 instead of Oric Atmos 48K. This is to indicate the installed 64 KB of RAM – which was also true of the Atmos –, 16 KB of which is masked in both by the ROM at startup, leaving 48 KB to work with the BASIC language.
In Bulgaria, the Atmos clone was named compatible interface and a custom DOS, called DOS-8D, were created in 1987–88 by Borislav Zahariev.
See also
References
- ^ a b Haworth, Jonathan (1992). "Oric, the Story so far". oric.free.fr. Chapter 1: Conception and Birth. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
- ^ a b "OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : The Museum". www.old-computers.com. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
- ^ a b c "OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : The Museum". www.old-computers.com. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
- ^ a b "Oric Atmos 48K". www.rigpix.com. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
- ^ a b "The Oric-1 is 30: The colourful story of a would-be Spectrum killer". theregister.co.uk. 28 January 2013. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
- ^ Alexios Chouchoulas. "The Machine Room :: Oric :: Telestrat :: General". machine-room.bedroomlan.org. Retrieved 18 June 2017.[dead link]
- ^ "What are the Atari 1020, 1025, 1027, and 1029 Printers?". faqs.org (Atari 8-Bit Computers: Frequently Asked Questions section). Retrieved 2015-03-22.
= Commodore 1520 / Oric MCP40 / Tandy/Radio Shack CGP-115 /..; made by ALPS
- ^ "The Texas Instruments HX-1000 Printer/Plotter Photos". Hexbus.com.
Other printer plotters that use variants of the ALPS DPG1302 plotter mechanism include the: Commodore 1520, Tandy CGP-115, Sharp CE-150, Atari 1020, Mattel Aquarius 4615
External links
- Oric FAQ
- Oric: The Story so Far
- Oric Atmos review March 1984 Your Computer
- Microtan 65 – Oric-1 – Oric Atmos at the Old Computers Museum
- Oric.org community portal (French)