website/content/museum/oric-1.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
ORIC 1	Computers	Home Computer	United Kingdom	1983	6502A	name company company_name specs tabs photos adverts hardware emulators links docs comments related oc_id source ORIC 1 /companies/oric Oric label value NAME ORIC 1 label value MANUFACTURER Oric label value TYPE Home Computer label value ORIGIN United Kingdom label value YEAR 1983 label value END OF PRODUCTION Unknown label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE Oric Extended Basic v1.0 label value KEYBOARD Chicklet keyboard, 57 keys. ESC, DEL ,CTRL, 2 x SHIFT, RETURN, 4 x arrow keys and one large spacebar label value CPU 6502A label value SPEED 1 MHz label value CO-PROCESSOR Custom gate array chip label value RAM 16 KB or 48 KB label value ROM 16 KB label value TEXT MODES 40 x 28 label value GRAPHIC MODES 240 x 200 (high resolution) label value COLORS 8 label value SOUND Programmable Sound Generator AY-3-8912 (from General Instruments)\ 3 voices, 8 octaves + white noise label value SIZE / WEIGHT 28 (W) x 17.8 (D) x 1.5 (H) cm / 848 g label value I/O PORTS Bus, Printer, Tape, RGB label value POWER SUPPLY External power supply unit : 9v - -(o- + label value PERIPHERALS 4-pen plotter printer, 3'' floppy disk drive unit label value PRICE £129.95 for 16K model with starter pack (UK 1983) photos adverts hardware emulators links docs title subtitle text image ORIC-1 null title subtitle text image FRONT null title subtitle text image RIGHT SIDE null title subtitle text image REAR null title subtitle text image BELOW null title subtitle text image FRONT null title subtitle text image DETAIL null title subtitle text image EARLY MODEL This is an early version, because the ORIC logo is black & white. Later versions have a colored logo. null title subtitle text image INSIDE ORIC 1 Though its technical design is quite close to that of its major competitor, the <$223$>Sinclair Spectrum, the Oric 1 offers some advantages : sound dedicated chipset, easy to manage graphics and more convenient Basic language, despite some bugs. **(1)** TV signals RF modulator.\ **(2)** RGB video connector. Until later versions of the Atmos, an external power supply unit was needed to commute the TV in monitor mode through the scart connector.\ **(3)** Tape recorder DIN connector with remote control.\ **(4)** Parallel / Centronics printer connector, needs a special cable.\ **(5)** Expansion connector, used for example by the numerous disk-drives available for the Oric.\ **(6)** Power plug. Power is supplied by an external PSU.\ **(7)** 5 volts regulator with its cooler.\ **(8)** Two EPROM holding the Microsoft Basic language and Input/Output routines.\ **(9)** MOS 6502A 8 bit microprocessor.\ **(10)** Dedicated Input / Output management chip (keyboard, printer, video...).\ **(11)** Internal loudspeaker. Sound was one of the good features of the Oric systems, though there were no way to control the volume of this internal speaker.\ **(12)** AY-9512 sound chipset (3 voices, 7 octaves).\ **(13)** Video dedicated chip which manages texts, graphics and colours.\ **(14)** Eight 4164 memory chips (64000 cells x 1 bit) holding the 64 Kb. RAM memory used for user programs and text / graphic display.\ **(15)** Internal clock for microprocessor and various chips synchronization.\ **(16)** TV aerial connector.\ **(17)** The Oric keyboard is original. Solid and accurate, it allows a sure and quick typing, after an adaptation time. null title subtitle text image PROTOTYPE Thanks to Paul Kaufman for this picture ! null title subtitle text image ORIC BREAD-BOARD SYSTEM Thanks to Paul Kaufman for this picture ! null title subtitle text image ORIC-1 BOX null title subtitle text image FRENCH AD (JULY 1983) null title subtitle text image UK ADVERT, OCT 1983 Notice that the pictured floppy drives have never been released. null title subtitle text image FRENCH AD (DEC. 1983) null title subtitle text image FRENCH BROCHURE #1 Thanks to **Jacques Sorro** null title subtitle text image FRENCH BROCHURE #2 Thanks to **Jacques Sorro** null title subtitle text image FRENCH BROCHURE #3 Thanks to **Jacques Sorro** null title subtitle text image FRENCH BROCHURE #4 Thanks to **Jacques Sorro** null title subtitle text image JASMIN II F.D. UNIT The Jasmin II was a 3" double-sided floppy drive unit. It was released in 1985, designed by T.R.A.N. and manufactured by Dattel, two french companies. Up to four units could be connected in chain. Each one featured an operating system called T.DOS then FT.DOS. Each diskette had a 357 KB capacity (2 sides x 41 tracks x 17 sectors x 256 bytes) /media/museum/hardware/oric_jasmin2_1.jpg title subtitle text image CUMANA EXPANSION BOX This expansion holds a power supply unit and a dual expansion port allowing the floppy disk unit and another expansion device to be connected simultaneously. /media/museum/hardware/oric_atmos_cumanaexp_s1.jpg title subtitle text image VOCAL SYNTHESIZER /media/museum/hardware/oric_synth_vocal.jpg title subtitle text image LIGHT PEN /media/museum/hardware/oric_lightpen.jpg title subtitle text image 8 IN/OUT BOARD /media/museum/hardware/oric_8_io.jpg title subtitle text image ORIC-1 MICRO DISC This rare item didn't live long and was quickly replaced by the black Atmos version. null title subtitle text image ATMOS MICRODISC The official Oric disk-drive. Soooo beautiful... Disc drive uses 320 Kb. formatted, double side 3'' diskette. In the first versions, operating system only managed sequential files. /media/museum/hardware/oric_atmos_microdsic_1.jpg title subtitle text image ATMOS PLOTTER This is the same as the MCP-40 for the Oric-1. This type of plotter (4 colors) was widely used for the micro-computers... /media/museum/hardware/oric_atmos_mcp40_1.jpg title subtitle text image INSIDE ATMOS PLOTTER The MCP-40 plotter uses a Japanese printing mechanism manufactured by Sharp. It's a little mechanical marvel able to print extremely precise four colour texts and graphics. Text is printed with 40 or 80 characters per line, at 10 characters per second speed. Characters size and printing direction may be modified (horizontal, vertical or diagonal). **(1)** Paper used is a roller of 115 mm width.\ **(2)** Printer command buttons.\ **(3)** Electromagnet that pushes the pen against paper for writing.\ **(4)** The print head moves laterally right across the paper width and swivels to carry out a pen colour change.\ **(5)** The head is connected through a cable to an engine which ensures its side moving by 0.2 mm steps.\ **(6)** A second engine controls top and bottom paper moving, also by 0.2 mm steps. /media/museum/hardware/oric_atmos_mcp40_2.jpg title url platform text Euphoric http://oric.ifrance.com/oric/emulator.html MS DOS The best ORIC emulators title url platform text Oric/MacOS http://www.bannister.org/software/oric.htm Apple Oric/MacOS is an Oric emulator for the Macintosh. title url platform text Xeuphoric http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/xeuphoric/ Unix / Linux Oric emulator for X11 platforms title url platform text AmOric http://oric.ifrance.com/oric/EMULATORS/Amoric.lha Amiga OS Oric emulator for the Amiga systems title url platform text ArcOric http://oric.ifrance.com/oric/EMULATORS/ArcOric12 RISC OS Oric emulator for RISC/OS title url platform text AtOric http://oric.ifrance.com/oric/EMULATORS/atoric09.zip Atari works with all Atari & Compatibles (Hades, Milan) title url platform text Oriculator http://code.google.com/p/oriculator/ Multiplatform Oricutron (formerly known as Oriculator) is an emulator for the Oric series of computers. It is written in plain C, and uses SDL. It is designed to be portable. title url text Club Europe Oric Home Page http://ceo.oric.org/ Club Europe Oric (or CEO for short) is an Oric user group title url text Defence Force Oric http://www.defence-force.org/computing/oric/index.htm Some very interesting info here title url text Marc's Oric Page http://mapage.cybercable.fr/marcpage/oric.htm Personal home page with some original programs to download title url text My nostalgia Oric page http://www.geffers.demon.co.uk/oricpage.html From an old Tansoft programmer title url text ORIC International http://www.oric.org I think this is where you must go first. There is among other things, a huge software database title url text Oric WebRing http://v.webring.com/hub?ring=oric Everything for the Oric title url text Oric World http://oric.iFrance.com/oric/index_french.html The site of the famous Fabrice Frances (includes the Oric Story book) title url text Pascal's Oric Page http://pleclerc.free.fr/Oric/OricPage.html in french, with ROM file to make your Oric Euro-Compatible ! title url text Rhetoric http://www.rhetoric.8k.com/ The last remaining British Oric magazine. title url text Swedish Oric Homepage http://come.to/oric Home of the Swedish software archive title url text The Reluctant Dragon http://freespace.virgin.net/james.groom/index.htm Home of the Oric FAQ, the Oric Cheats Directory and more title url text TheSpider's Oric Web http://oricspider.home.insightbb.com/ Personal site dedicated to the Oric Atmos title url text Twilighte http://twilighte.oric.org Site of the excellent Oric programmer of Magnetix. Many useful info and impressive works ! title url text Web Wiz CAPTCHA http://www.webwizcaptcha.com Discussion about Oric computers title url cover text ORIC-1 BASIC PROGRAMMING MANUAL http://www.defence-force.org/computing/oric/library/lib_manual_oric/index.htm /media/museum/docs/couvs/oric-1_basic-programming-manual.jpg [**ORIC-1 BASIC PROGRAMMING MANUAL**](http://www.defence-force.org/computing/oric/library/lib_manual_oric/index.htm)written by John SCRIVEN  compiled/archived by Unknown\  type of document : PDF\  source : [Defence Force](http://www.defence-force.org/) title url cover text MANUEL DE L'ATMOS (FRENCH MANUAL) http://www.defence-force.org/computing/oric/library/lib_manual_oric/index.htm /media/museum/docs/couvs/oric-atmos_manuel.jpg [**MANUEL DE L'ATMOS (FRENCH MANUAL)**](http://www.defence-force.org/computing/oric/library/lib_manual_oric/index.htm)written by Ian Adamson / Oric International  compiled/archived by William Saint-Cricq\  type of document : PDF\  source : [Defence Force](http://www.defence-force.org) title url cover text ORIC ATMOS & ORIC-1 - GRAPHICS AND MACHINE CODE TECHNIQUES http://www.1000bit.net/support/manuali/manuali.asp /media/museum/docs/couvs/oric-1-atmos_geoff-philips_1.jpg [**ORIC ATMOS & ORIC-1 - GRAPHICS AND MACHINE CODE TECHNIQUES**](http://www.1000bit.net/support/manuali/manuali.asp)written by Geoff Phillips  compiled/archived by Geoff Phillips\  type of document : PDF\  source : [1000Bit](http://www.1000bit.net/) title url cover text MANUEL D'UTILISATION DU SEDORIC (FRENCH) http://www.defence-force.org/computing/oric/library/lib_dos/manuel_microdisc_et_sedoric/index.htm /media/museum/docs/couvs/oric_microdsic-manuel.jpg [**MANUEL D'UTILISATION DU SEDORIC (FRENCH)**](http://www.defence-force.org/computing/oric/library/lib_dos/manuel_microdisc_et_sedoric/index.htm)written by Fabrice BROCHE & Denis SEBBAG  type of document : HTML\  source : [Defence Force](http://www.defence-force.org) title url cover text MICODISC MANUAL http://www.defence-force.org/computing/oric/library/lib_dos/index.htm /media/museum/docs/couvs/oric_microdisc_manual.jpg [**MICODISC MANUAL**](http://www.defence-force.org/computing/oric/library/lib_dos/index.htm)written by Oric Products International Limited  type of document : PDF\  source : [Defence Force](http://www.defence-force.org) title url cover text ORIC MCP-40 COLOUR PRINTER OPERATION MANUAL /media/museum/docs/oric_printer-mcp40_manual.pdf /media/museum/docs/couvs/oric_mcp40_manual.jpg [**ORIC MCP-40 COLOUR PRINTER OPERATION MANUAL**](/media/museum/docs/oric_printer-mcp40_manual.pdf)written by Oric Products International Limited  type of document : PDF\  source : [Defence Force](http://www.defence-force.org) author date text Danilo (Netherlamds) Saturday 19th January 2019 How about the succes this computer had here in the Netherlands! author date text 8Bit Baz (Hull, UK) Friday 16th February 2018 The Oric is one of those things that you ''fall in love with'' when you are a disaffected teenager. You choose a machine that isn''t exactly the coolest or most popular around but clearly is ''something else''.\ How many ways do we "lurve" thee, Oric?\ Check out the threads and posts here to find out, guys: http://atari.boards.net/thread/2446/oric-count-ways-love-thee author date text DigitalDunc (England) Friday 19th September 2014 I remember when I got my first Oric-1 (I was still in school then) and immediately took it apart. Back then it was all magic. Computers these days don''t inspire me in the same way. Sigh! I met the guy who wrote the ROM and he was rude to me! He nearly crushed my dreams but luckily failed. author date text Mickael Pointier (Norway) Tuesday 8th January 2013 Greetings, 2013 marks the 30th birthday of the Oric 1.\ Some of the Oric community main sites have joined to organize some celebrations during 2013. You can read more about it on the official celebration page (english and french) here:\ http://oric30years.defence-force.org We also have a facebook page with regular posts about the Oric machines, their history, peripherals, etc...\ https://www.facebook.com/OricBirthday author date text Brian Gregory (UK) Saturday 6th November 2010 I have an Oric-1. I bought the Oric rather than a Sinclair ZX Spectrum because I liked the proper bus expansion connector on the back and I wanted to experiment. It''s actually my second one since the cassette input failed in a few weeks on the first. The replacement failed too but by then the Oric-1 circuit diagram had been published in Oric User Magazine and comparing the diagram with what was actually in my Oric-1 (it wasn''t quite exactly the same) I could see part of the cassette interface that looked badly designed so I tried fixing it and it worked!!! The solution, if you have an Oric that won''t load from cassette is to fit a pull-up resistor on the input from the cassette interface to the 6522 VIA chip. I just soldered the resistor under the PCB across pins 18 and 20 of the 6522 VIA. I used 2k2 but 4k7 would probably be plenty. The original design used only the on chip pull-up but I knew from experience that the pull-ups in the 6522 were often very weak. author date text salsaman Friday 15th October 2010 I remember a friend of mine had one of these. What most impressed me was that there were four built in commands for making sound effects: "shoot", "zap", "ping" and "explode". author date text Jeremy Thomson (New Zealand) Monday 30th August 2010 The Oric 1 was the first computer I owned. Brought into New Zealand by Barson Brothers of Papakura. There were rumours in the 90''s that they still had a warehouse full of them.\ What sold me on the Oric was the sound, there was a real paper cone speaker about 3-4cm in diameter. It was LOUD! At certain frequencies I could vibrate the Oric across the desk, much like a cell phone on vibrate. Most of my programming was generating interesting sounds. You could get 4 bit digital waveforms out of the sound chip by rapidly (machine code) changing the volume register. So I learnt 6502 assembly on the Oric. I had the assembler and Forth language plus a few games\ I thought the embedded colour attributes was an interesting technical response to the demands of hires graphics, 8 colours on screen, and memory conservation. To change the color of a pixel, somewhere to the left of that pixel you changed the foreground/background colour. This took up 8 pixels and set the foreground/background ($ flash) for the rest of the scan line or until another attribute code is found. author date text Stuart Monday 14th June 2010 Bought one of these for the younger offspring and it eventually went faulty. I still have the replacement model (which featured a proper keyboard) but, unfortunately, the other half threw out the games and operating tapes for it. author date text Adrian Pitman (Somerset,UK) Saturday 27th December 2008 Ahhh the memories!,this was my very 1st computer that my Dad bought me 2nd hand, I can still remember going to the original owners house to see it working, after having this for a while I then had a Spectrum+ author date text Stephen Lambert (UK) Thursday 24th January 2008 Hello, I've just been given an Oric 1 from my friend and I can't seem to get it working. I plug it in okay and connect it to the tv but i don't get any picture. I can tell the machine is turned on because there is a very quiet buzzing sound coming the inside. Any advice will be very much appreciated, thanks. author date text Mark Urquhart-Webb (UK) Friday 4th May 2007 This was the first computer I paid for. I learned most computing on a ZX81 I borrowed from a friend. I had to wait way too long for it to arrive after I ordered it (as I did when I bought s Sinclair QL) but I loved it, despite the really clunky keyboard. 'Bang', 'ping', 'zap' etc.... who can forget these built in sounds? author date text anasana (Ukraine, Odessa) Friday 17th June 2005 Hello again, since my last message, I have found many Lode Runner clone games\ and create the LodeDome web-site with them.\ Look there, if You wish to play the LR games for ORIC and other old computer platforms. author date text Nigel (New Zealand) Tuesday 27th April 2004 I remember repairing hundreds of these. The machine used low-grade RAM chips which tended to fail - sometimes all at once. The tell-tale faulty RAM could be detected by the temperature of the chips. Some ran red hot and could be detected with a fingertip, but on others, the easiest way to tell was by applying an even coating of freeze-it spray across all of the chips, and seeing which one(s) cleared the quickest.\ The replacement RAM had to be put in IC sockets, as the PCB through hole plating didn't survive more than one desoldering/soldering cycle. author date text anasana (Ukraine, Odessa) Wednesday 18th June 2003 Please Help me to find work version of "Eddy Lode" game (Lode Runner game clone).\ From http://romualdl.oric.org/progs/oric_eddylode.html author date text Glyn Cowan (Glasgow) Tuesday 11th March 2003 In reply to Stuart it could be that the pins that connect the keyboard to the computer have worked their way out from their socket slightly, this used to happen to mine a lot when I used it, you will need to open the case and push them back into place. I have a couple of oric one's and a couple of atmos's I've managed to get one of each working however I only have two games one called Zorgons Revenge (which works) and the other is a version of galaxsaians (which dosent-you cant get the ship to go left after you move it to the right) If anyone has any other software and would like to send me a copy or would like a copy of either of my games pleade let me know at glyncowan@hotmail.com Thanks author date text Stuart (UK) Wednesday 6th March 2002 I've still got an old Oric 1 48K but the keyboard is not working (it boots up OK). I THINK that it may be the keyboard chip, but I'm not sure. Does anyone have any ideas? Or, if it sounds like the chip may be the problem, any ideas where I can obtain another one?? /museum/oric-atmos /museum/oric-nova-64 180 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230605143231/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=180 2023-06-05

This British computer was one of the most popular computers in Europe in the beginning of the 80's. It was a small computer, which was a competitor of the Sinclair Spectrum.

The two models (16 and 48) had the same technical characteristics.
A small plotter was available for this computer.

Notice that the sound chip was the same one used in the Amstrad CPC, MSX computers and Atari ST!

Its ROM was very buggy, & was later replaced with the Oric Atmos.