New member saying hi!

In this forum you can write about anything that does not fit in other forums.
This includes generic Oric talkings and things that are totaly unrelated but want to share with people here :)
Bacon
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New member saying hi!

Post by Bacon »

Hello there!

Just wanted to make myself known. I never had an Oric back when, but I got one a few days ago from a guy at the place I work. It's an Oric-1 with a rev 3 motherboard which he had bought new in 1983. What I was really after was his old Commodore SX-64, but when he said I could have his Oric too I was really excited. I've read a lot about the Oric on the web but I never thought I would be able to get one myself.

I had a Commodore VIC-20 form 1982-1984 and a Commodore 64 1984-1987, and the Commies were the only computers I cared about then. In 2001 I started buying old Commodores again, and after a while I began looking for other 8-bit computers too. I now also have a couple of ZX Spectrums and ZX81s, which I'm really fond of. I'm sure the Oric will find a place in my heart too.

I must say it seems to be a very nice little computer. You can never go wrong with a 6502, and the sound chip is certainly a big step forward from the Spectrum's beeper :). Especially the hardware seems to be very sensible and well thought out, with the RGB output and real sockets instead of edge connectors in the back.

I'll have to build a tape lead before I'll be able to load any programs from my PC's soundcard, but I've made a composite lead, connected it to my monitor and tried it out a little, and it seems to be in working order.

I hope to find some time to do a little 6502 assembly programming on it soon with the help of ca65 or some other crossassembler.

P.S. I see that an old acquiantance from the VIC-20 forums over at Denial is here too. Hello Carlsson!
Bacon
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Das rubbernecken Sichtseeren keepen das cotton-pickenen Hands in die Pockets muss; relaxen und watschen die Blinkenlichten.
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Dbug
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Re: New member saying hi!

Post by Dbug »

Bacon wrote:Hello there!
Just wanted to make myself known.
Welcome :)
You are the first person to register since I changed the validation system of the forum, so I guess the change worked, because you are there, and I had no more spam/referal bots :)
Bacon wrote:I never had an Oric back when, but I got one a few days ago from a guy at the place I work. It's an Oric-1 with a rev 3 motherboard which he had bought new in 1983. What I was really after was his old Commodore SX-64, but when he said I could have his Oric too I was really excited. I've read a lot about the Oric on the web but I never thought I would be able to get one myself.
Technicaly your Oric-1 is totaly similar to the Oric atmos (100% hardware compatible, just a different case, keyboard, and ROM - that makes it incompatible with some software that calls rom functions directly).

SX64 is a cool beast, so a number of them in july in Helsingborg. There was a demo party called Big Floppy People :)

Bacon wrote:I must say it seems to be a very nice little computer. You can never go wrong with a 6502, and the sound chip is certainly a big step forward from the Spectrum's beeper :). Especially the hardware seems to be very sensible and well thought out, with the RGB output and real sockets instead of edge connectors in the back.
Well, nothing perfect. First I would advise you to put some sticky tape or cardboard thing on the bus/printer connectors, because if you are unlucky you will fry the machin when plugging/unplugging the power connector... very classical mistake, plug the +9v on the 6502 bus is not a great idea :-/

I'll have to build a tape lead before I'll be able to load any programs from my PC's soundcard, but I've made a composite lead, connected it to my monitor and tried it out a little, and it seems to be in working order.
Bacon wrote:I hope to find some time to do a little 6502 assembly programming on it soon with the help of ca65 or some other crossassembler.
If you are using Windows as main operating system, you should probably take a look at the OSDK. It's kind like ca65, but directly targeted to the oric, with samples and libraries.
Should get you started fast, and you can ask questions on the forum too.
http://www.defence-force.org/computing/ ... /index.htm

Have fun :)
Bacon
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Location: Mölndal, Sweden

Re: New member saying hi!

Post by Bacon »

Dbug wrote:Well, nothing perfect. First I would advise you to put some sticky tape or cardboard thing on the bus/printer connectors, because if you are unlucky you will fry the machin when plugging/unplugging the power connector... very classical mistake, plug the +9v on the 6502 bus is not a great idea :-/
Oops! I'll put some tape there. Luckily the guy I bought it from has put a on/off switch on the power lead, so I won't have to unplug the lead to turn off and on the machine, so the risk is minimal. Better to be safe than sorry, though.
If you are using Windows as main operating system, you should probably take a look at the OSDK. It's kind like ca65, but directly targeted to the oric, with samples and libraries.
Should get you started fast, and you can ask questions on the forum too.
http://www.defence-force.org/computing/ ... /index.htm
I do have Windows XP on a partition, but my main OS is Gentoo Linux. I'll try and get OSDK working under Wine (a Windows compatibility layer that can run many Windows programs in Linux). Otherwise I think ca65 will be adequate for me.
Have fun :)
I'm sure I will :D
Bacon
-------------------------------------------------------
Das rubbernecken Sichtseeren keepen das cotton-pickenen Hands in die Pockets muss; relaxen und watschen die Blinkenlichten.
Bacon
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Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:35 pm
Location: Mölndal, Sweden

Post by Bacon »

Btw, I'm thinking of burning a large EPROM with both the Atmos and Oric-1 ROMs and a switch so I can use whichever I want.
Bacon
-------------------------------------------------------
Das rubbernecken Sichtseeren keepen das cotton-pickenen Hands in die Pockets muss; relaxen und watschen die Blinkenlichten.
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Dbug
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Re: New member saying hi!

Post by Dbug »

Bacon wrote:I do have Windows XP on a partition, but my main OS is Gentoo Linux. I'll try and get OSDK working under Wine (a Windows compatibility layer that can run many Windows programs in Linux). Otherwise I think ca65 will be adequate for me.
Well, I'm in the process of trying linux on my laptop (Ubuntu 6.06 ), so if you could help me with how to get the OSDK to work on linux, I would be very grateful :)

I plan to eventually convert it as a natice linux version one day, but it would be sure convenient as a start to get it to work right now, cause well I need to learn how the whole "linux programming" stuff work :)
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Last edited by Dbug on Sun Aug 20, 2006 2:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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TheSpider
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Post by TheSpider »

Hiya Bacon,
Always great to meet a fellow Oric user.

Although I was an Oric user from day 1, with a 16K Oric-1, I drifted away from the Oric scene until after the new millenium.
Discovered the Oric newsgroup (comp.sys.org), the main webpage (http://www.oric.org), and this wonderful community of people.

This year I was given an Oric Atmos by a great friend here, and have been using it here in Kentucky, USA.
Until then, and still now, I have been using Euphoric, an excellent Oric emulator, running on Win98 and WinXP.
The emulator also runs on Linux, amongst other OS's, and details may be found here: http://oric.free.fr/emulator.html

Looking forward to discussing with you more.
Peter (TheSpider) Paterson
A Scotsman in Kentucky
http://thespider.oric.org
http://mintspider.blogspot.com
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Dbug
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Post by Dbug »

By the way, if you want to have a rough idea of the machines capabilities, you can check both the game database on Oric.org (you need to register to be able to see the screenshots... don't ask), and the oric demos, on pouet.net.

Links:
http://www.oric.org
http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?platform=Oric

Don't hesitate to leave comments after you tested a game or a demo, it's always rewarding to know that some people took the time to check stuff.
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