Oric is the name of a British mark of microcomputers , which was repurchased by a French company .

The models produced in the Années 1980 by Oric are:

• Oric 1: 2 versions 16 Kio and 48 masked Kio + 16 Kio
• Oric Atmos: 2 versions envisaged 16 and 48 masked Kio + 16 Kio (used by the disk drive), but only the version 48 Kio was produced
• Oric Telestrat: 176 Kio in a beach of 64 Kio and 7 commutable banks of 16 Kio

The Computer programming language of these machines (Oric-1 and Atmos) was a version of the language BASIC of Microsoft and modified by the company Tangerine Computer Systems.

The core of the BASIC (i.e. without the graphic and sound extensions) is similar to that of the Commodore 64.

The language of Telestrat, Hyper BASIC, was written by Fabrice Broche. It presents since 1986 a revolutionary innovation for a language BASIC on family microcomputer: it is compiled (see: compilation) and posts performances much higher than the BASIC interpreted of the other computers (see: Interpreter). Oric 1 and Atmos had:

• a Microprocessor Rockwell 6502 turning to 1 MHz
• 8 colors (black, white, 3 colors primary and secondary) on 3 bits.
• a sound processor with 4 ways (3 musical ways and a way white vibration), General Instrument PSG AY3-8912.
• a mode text (TEXT), a mode low semigraphic resolution (LORES) and a graphic mode (HIRES)

Oric Telestrat brought major differences:

• a second controller VIA 6522 for the ports joystick/mouse, a ACIA 6551 for the Port series (max. speed: 19.600 bit/s) and connector industry to make a waiter Minitel of it (modem not included, that of the minitel was used)
• two ports cartouche (the operating system and the BASIC were on cartridge, but also the waiter Videotex, the Assembleur TV-Ass, etc)
• an extensible memory, by the addition of cartridges RAM
• a cartridge of emulation Oric Atmos (which did not make it possible to make function the disk drive: the system of boot differs between Atmos and Telestrat)
• a disk drive 3" external (Slave: the controller of diskette being on the mother chart), 3 readers could be added with a simple tablecloth 4 connectors.

The text mode has 3 alternatives (by the BASIC) (TEXT, LORES0, LORES1). This mode has a definition of 40 characters of 28 lines.

These 3 modes are actually the same ones. Only their management differs thanks to the attributes in first column (commutating of a table of definition of nature text or semigraphic).

The mode high-resolution (HIRES) is the graphic mode of 240 pixels out of 200 pixels plus 3 lines of text in bottom (of 40 characters). HIRES has constraints of proximity of pixels (blocks of 6 pixels). A line of 240 pixels is coded on 40 bytes. The 2 bits of strong weight determine the attribute, the 6 other pixels will form either the form with the screen or an attribute (depend on the coding of the 2 bits of strong weight).

See too

Related articles

• Data-processing

External bonds

• History of Oric
• Site files
• Association Club Europe Oric
• Site specialized on the plays for ORIC