Oric was the name used by UK-based
Tangerine Computer Systems
Tangerine Computer Systems was a British microcomputer company founded in 1979 by Dr. Paul Johnson, Mark Rainer and Nigel Penton Tilbury in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire.
The very first product was the successful TAN1648 VDU kit which received muc ...
for a series of
6502
The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...
-based home computers sold in the 1980s, primarily in Europe.
With the success of the
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer.
Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...
from
Sinclair Research
Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was originally incorporated in 1973 as Westminster Mail Order Ltd, renamed Sinclair Instrument Ltd, then Science of Cambridge Ltd, then ...
, 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.
During 1983, approximately 160,000 Oric-1 computers were sold in the UK, plus another 50,000 in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
(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 clones of Oric machines were produced into the 1990s.
Models
Oric-1
Based on a 1 MHz
MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...
CPU, the Oric-1 came in 16
KB or 48 KB
RAM
Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:
Animals
* A male sheep
* Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish
People
* Ram (given name)
* Ram (surname)
* Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director
* RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch
* ...
variants for £129 and £169 respectively, matching the models available for the popular ZX Spectrum and undercutting the price of the 48 KB version of the Spectrum by a few pounds. The circuit design requires 8 memory chips, one chip per data line of the CPU. Due to the sizing of readily available memory chips the 48 KB model has 8 * 8 KB (64 KBit) chips, making a total of 64 KB. As released only 48 KB is available to the user, with the top 16 KB of memory overlaid by the
BASIC ROM
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* ...
;
The optional disc drive unit contains some additional hardware that allows it to enable or disable the ROM, effectively adding 16 KB of RAM to the machine. This additional memory is used by the system to store the Oric
DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
software. Both Oric-1 versions have a 16 KB ROM containing the
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
and a modified BASIC
interpreter.
The Oric-1 has a
sound chip
A sound chip is an integrated circuit (chip) designed to produce audio signals through digital, analog or mixed-mode electronics. Sound chips are typically fabricated on metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) mixed-signal chips that process ...
, the programmable
General Instrument AY-3-8910.
Two graphics modes are handled by a semi-custom
ASIC (
ULA) which also manages the interface between the processor and memory. The two modes are a "LORES" (low resolution) text mode (though the character set can be redefined to produce graphics) with 28 rows of 40 characters and a "HIRES" (high resolution) mode with 200 rows of 240
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...
s above three lines of text. Like the Spectrum, the Oric-1 suffers from
attribute clash
Attribute may refer to:
* Attribute (philosophy), an extrinsic property of an object
* Attribute (research), a characteristic of an object
* Grammatical modifier, in natural languages
* Attribute (computing), a specification that defines a proper ...
–albeit to a much lesser degree in HIRES mode, since 2 different colours can be defined for each 6x1 block of 6 pixels,
The system has a built-in
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
RF modulator
An RF modulator (or radio frequency modulator) is an electronic device whose input is a baseband signal which is used to modulate a radio frequency source.
RF modulators are used to convert signals from devices such as media players, VCRs a ...
as well as
RGB
The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three addi ...
output. A standard
audio tape
An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...
recorder can be used for external storage. There is a
Centronics
Centronics Data Computer Corporation was an American manufacturer of computer printers, now remembered primarily for the parallel interface that bears its name, the Centronics connector.
History
Foundations
Centronics began as a division ...
compatible printer interface.
Technical details
* CPU: MOS 6502 @ 1 MHz
* Operating system: Tangerine/
Microsoft Extended Basic v1.0
* 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
The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three addit ...
out, RF out, expansion port
* Voltage: 9 V
* Power consumption: Max 600
milliamp
The ampere (, ; symbol: A), often shortened to amp,SI supports only the use of symbols and deprecates the use of abbreviations for units. is the unit of electric current in the International System of Units (SI). One ampere is equal to elect ...
s
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.
The Edenspring money enabled Oric International to release the Oric Atmos, which added an improved keyboard and an updated V1.1 ROM to the Oric-1. The faulty tape
error checking
In information theory and coding theory with applications in computer science and telecommunication, error detection and correction (EDAC) or error control are techniques that enable reliable delivery of digital data over unreliable communica ...
routine was still there (See "Cassette Interface" under
Technical specification
A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard.
There are different types of technical or engineering specificati ...
, below).
Soon after the Atmos was released, the
modem
A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...
,
printer
Printer may refer to:
Technology
* Printer (publishing), a person or a company
* Printer (computing), a hardware device
* Optical printer for motion picture films
People
* Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist
* James ...
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 error messages. Up to 6000 units were sold in France.
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
PAL
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
UHF colour or black and white television receiver on approximately Channel 36.
RGB
The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three addi ...
output is also provided on a 5 pin
DIN 41524
The DIN connector is an electrical connector that was standardized by the ' (DIN), the German Institute for Standards, in the early 1970s. The male DIN connectors (plugs) feature a 13.2 mm diameter metal shield with a notch that limits the ...
socket.
Character mode
In character mode the Oric displays 28 lines of 40 characters, producing a display very similar to
Teletext
A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories
Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
. The character set is standard
ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
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
General Instruments AY-3-8912
The AY-3-8910 is a 3-voice programmable sound generator (PSG) designed by General Instrument in 1978, initially for use with their 16-bit CP1610 or one of the PIC1650 series of 8-bit microcomputers. The AY-3-8910 and its variants were used i ...
provides 3 channel sound.
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 Pin DIN 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,
checksum
A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ...
s are recorded to allow overall verification of the recording.
The circuit was designed using a
Schmitt trigger
In electronics, a Schmitt trigger is a comparator circuit with hysteresis implemented by applying positive feedback to the noninverting input of a comparator or differential amplifier. It is an active circuit which converts an analog input ...
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
Centronics parallel interface allows for connection of many different types of printers from low quality (e.g. low-resolution
thermal printer
Thermal printing (or direct thermal printing) is a digital printing process which produces a printed image by passing paper with a thermochromic coating, commonly known as thermal paper, over a print head consisting of tiny electrically heated ...
s) to high quality printers, such as fixed font
daisy wheel printer
Daisy wheel printing is an impact printing technology invented in 1970 by Andrew Gabor at Diablo Data Systems. It uses interchangeable pre-formed type elements, each with typically 96 glyphs, to generate high-quality output comparable to pr ...
s or
laser printer
Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to ...
s, though the latter were uncommon and expensive during the period of commercial availability of the Oric range. Most contemporary computer printers could produce text output without requiring specific drivers, and often followed de facto standards for simple graphics. More advanced use of the printer would have required a specific driver which, given the proliferation of different home computers and standards of the time, may or may not have been available.
Peripherals
Colour plotter
Tangerine's MCP-40 is a plotter with mechanics by
Alps Electric
is a Japanese multinational corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, producing electronic devices, including switches, potentiometers, sensors, encoders and touchpads.
The company was established in 1948 as Kataoka Electric Co., Ltd. and ch ...
. The same mechanism was also used as the basis for similar low-cost plotters produced by various home computer manufacturers around that time. These included the
Atari 1020, the
Commodore 1520, the
Tandy/Radio Shack CGP-115,
the Texas Instruments HX-1000, the Mattel Aquarius 4615,
and probably also the
Sharp MZ-1P16 (for
MZ-800 series).
Prestel adaptor
The
Prestel
Prestel (abbrev. from press telephone), the brand name for the UK Post Office Telecommunications's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979. It achieved a maxim ...
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.
Clones
The Atmos was licensed in
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
and sold as ''Nova 64''.
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 ''
Pravetz 8D'' and produced between 1985 and 1991.
The Pravetz is entirely hardware and software compatible with the Oric Atmos. The biggest change on the hardware side is the larger white case that hosts a comfortable mechanical keyboard and an integrated power supply. The BASIC ROM has been patched to host both a Western European and
Cyrillic alphabet the upper case character set produces Western European characters, while lower case gives Cyrillic letters. In order to ease the use of the two alphabets, the Pravetz 8D is fitted with a
Caps Lock key. A
Disk II compatible interface and a custom DOS, called DOS-8D, were created in 1987–88 by Borislav Zahariev.
See also
*
:Oric games
References
External links
Oric FAQOric Atmos reviewMarch 1984 ''
Your Computer''
Microtan 65Oric-1
{snd}
Oric Atmos
at the Old Computers Museum
Oric.org
community portal (French)
Early microcomputers
6502-based home computers
Home computers
Tangerine Computer Systems