Oric-1 First L̶o̶o̶k̶ Listen

[@alogie]

If I remember correctly, the ZAP, PING, and EXPLODE commands were added to make it easier for people to create games in BASIC without having to create their own sound effects. I have to admit I entered 10 ZAP, 20 GOTO 10, and hit ENTER in a computer store before running away, but only once.

[@paulstubbs7678]

I had way more fun with a computer that had a speech synth attached (Votrax) I made it wait a few minutes, then let loose with some choice messages. The delay was so I could quietly wander to the other side of the shop and wait for the mayhem to start. The sales man behind the counter had a very quick solution unfortunately, he just opened the power switchboard that lived behind the counter and flipped a circuit breaker. Boring....

[@Jimbaloidatron]

I did the same!

[@JamsterJules]

I did loads of that - but most of the staff didn't know how to reset, turn the computers off. They had to suffer with "Woolworth is sh£t" scrolling up the screen 😂

[@edgeeffect]

... only once? ... that game never got old. ;)

[@thiesenf]

Every kid back in the 80's made those demo computers scroll some obnoxious text... :-) I speak from experince... :-)

[@RooMan93]

3:02 we never could use joysticks because we always have a cup of tea in one hand.

[@G.B...]

Best vintage computer blind review, ever.

[@SmoothTouchDown]

The Oric Atmos ROM 1.1b Disassembly is available on line if you search for it. The ZAP EXPLODE PING and SHOOT commands are detailed here. You can copy them into RAM and make alterations to the presets. ZAP is at FAE1 for example.

[@RocketRenton]

The display adapter will drive a PAL UHF colour or black and white television receiver on approximately Channel 36. RGB output is also provided on a 5 pin DIN 41524 socket.

[@FredericBezies]

Oric 1 was followed by Oric Atmos (48Kb with a more mecanical keyboard). Also, it was the first programming computer of Eric Chahi who released in 1991 "Another World" (in Europe), "Out of this world" in north america.

[@markevans2294]

The Oric Atmos is similarly to the Spectrum+ in that it's the same board in a different case. Though IIRC there was a slightly upgrade/bug fixed ROM change between the two versions.

[@kimoskamot]

You really brought great memories to me, that's the computer where I wrote my very first line of code in my life, back in 1984. That same year in Christmas I got my C64

[@ColinJonesPonder]

The missing bit of the PSU is the earth pin. Not connected on this because it was just plastic but still necessary in the UK because it pushes out covers over the live and neutral pins in the socket (safety system).

[@speedbird737]

UK plugs so much better than US/CAD

[@Okurka.]

@@speedbird737 Until you step on one with your bare feet.

[@G1itcher]

​​@@Okurka. Dunno if you're from the UK or not, but assuming you're not; stepping on them isnt as common as you'd imagine. Because our wall sockets have switches on them we tend to leave them plugged in.

[@handwriting8804]

@@G1itcherwe tend to leave things plugged in too, we just can’t turn off the voltage at the wall

[@G1itcher]

@@handwriting8804 fair enough. Not sure where this trope of stepping on plugs has come from in that case. It's like saying knives are dangerous because you could step on them 😅

[@CptJistuce]

I love that the RETURN key makes a deeper THUNK sound instead of a CLICK like the rest of the keys.

[@JohnDlugosz]

It _should_ make a different sound 😁 Back in the day, when PCs became powerful enough to reliably generate PCM sound from the OG beeper circuit but well before sound cards were standard (adlib, before SoundBlaster), my friend and I sampled a sound effects CD that had a typewriter typing track. A cute demo program made the keyboard give feedback noise, with normal keys choosing a few different keystrike sounds at random, but the SHIFT made a _thunk_ as the typewriter literally shifts the mechanism, releasing the shift made the opposite noise, but RETURN was sampled from a literal carriage return.

[@CptJistuce]

@@JohnDlugosz Very nice!

[@TobyDeshane]

I would never have expected to take a video in this direction, but you absolutely made it work. That was fun. Can't wait to see it in all it's video glory. ;)

[@MrSketchydave69]

The Oric was followed up by The Atmos. Same machine but was black with black & red "real" keys. It had an updated ROM too if memory serves...

[@8_Bit]

I've seen pictures of that model, it's really nice looking. I'll see if I can get one.

[@alogie]

The Atmos was a great-looking machine, and the keyboard was a huge improvement. Unfortunately, by the time it came out, Tangerine was really starting to get into financial difficulties.

[@RetroCave-wr9tl]

I knew an Atmos fanatic who claimed that the machine was superior to C64. He even managed to find a disk drive for it. I don't remember anything he produced for Atmos though, it would have been cool to see.

[@MrSketchydave69]

@@RetroCave-wr9tl My friend had an Oric, we swapped computers for a week. I had his Oric and he had my C64. He didn't want to give me my C64 back, although I'm glad he did. The Oric software wasn't the greatest alas...

[@BrainSlugs83]

This is my favorite BASIC programming video for 2024 so far. Well done, Robin! 🙂

[@jon-paulfilkins7820]

As a kid looking for his first computer at the time. I considered an Oric but in the end went for a Spectrum. The Oric was a rival to the Sinclair Spectrum. Priced 'about' £10 either side of the equivalent Spectrum depending on when you looked. Like all bargain basement machines, it saved money by not including many ports including game controller ports. The keyboard was not pleasant for long term use. It sold OK at the start but lacked the name recognition of Sinclair which was built by the ZX81 in the high street. I only ever remember seeing it in specialist shops. The High Street retailers specifically Boots (A Chemists that did other things) and W.H. Smiths (A stationers and news agents that also did music, books etc) didn't seem to stock the hardware (unlike the Spectrum) but both did stock software for a while. Now these were big retailers with a shop on every high street, and I mean Every High street, so them not stocking a machine would have been to consign it to obscurity/failure in the UK market. The market, just as the US market had its video consol crash in 83, the christmas of 84/new year of 85 the UK market had its own collapse of computer manufacturers. Oric along with Dragon, Camputers and others, collapsed. Some would live on in other places (The Dragon was bought out and production moved to Spain) and the Oric had an afterlife of production in France where it was for a time, a market leader.

[@vwestlife]

UK TV channel 36 uses the same video carrier frequency as UHF channel 34 in North America. So with a British computer like this, if you have an old TV with manual tuning knobs and a manual vertical hold control, you should be able to tune it in on channel 34 and then adjust the V-hold knob to lock onto the 50 Hz refresh rate. It won't be in color because of the PAL encoding instead of NTSC, but at least you'd be able to see it in black & white. But newer TVs and VCRs with electronic tuners will just skip over the "foreign" signal on that channel, and even if you could get the TV to display it, the picture would be constantly rolling due to the lack of a manual V-hold adjustment.

[@OM19_MO79]

That only applies to PAL composite video. You get luma mixed with chroma at 50hz with no NTSC color burst, hence, you get a rolling b/w picture. On radio frequencies is something completely different. NTSC kept the compatibility with System B by utilizing the same bandwidth channel used on VHF, adding that signal called color burst. That’s why NTSC countries still to this day, kept using VHF and UHF channels. PAL made its own thing, to avoid the color errors of NTSC, it ditches any existing B/W System and a possible compatibility to encode color in its own way. In order to do so, the bandwidth for each UHF PAL channel is bigger than the VHF and UHF System B and NTSC channels. The reason why PAL countries didn’t have VHF channels for color is because of the bandwidth, there was not enough space. An NTSC receiver is incapable of getting PAL RF signals, it’s like gibberish to it. You won’t get a rolling B/W image with audio in NTSC channel 34 from a PAL signal, you’ll get noise.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

@@OM19_MO79 Gosh. I'd be a caveman without all the smart folks.

[@davidleach2288]

This was a great video. Thanks for all the awesome content you produce. You are the reason I’ve gotten into C64 assembly programming.

[@benanderson89]

The broken off pin is the earth connection for devices that require one; its also a safety device in that its longer than the live and neutral pins and opens an internal shutter which covers them both. With video, we don't have predefined freqiencies for each channel. Televisions were always programmable. You unfortunately do need a TV Tuner for PAL to get systems like this to work. RGB was very common because of the already mentioned SCART connection (courtosy of France!)

[@T8staDiM3rda]

My dad bought one when we’re kids. We loved it. Getting peripherals for this was pain though - don’t think we even managed to get a joystick port for it.

[@CommandLineCowboy]

My first computer, it was the sound that sold me. A proper three voice sound chip (AY-3-8910) while the spectrum just had the single bit. That built in speaker was loud, I actually bodged a switch to disable it and took the sound from the cassette port to the line in of my Sharp boombox. Used it as my alarm clock for few months, wrote a clock program in BASIC. Did a bit of messing with the sound, found that by rapidly setting the volume of the chip you could get a 4 bit software waveform. The reason I bought the assembler to do that fast in machine code. Then I bought a MSX which had the same sound chip, but had to learn Z80.

[@michaelcarey]

I can remember seeing advertisements and reviews for the ORIC-1 in computer/electronics magazines of that time. Never knew anyone that had one. It was an amazing time to be a computer hobbyist.

[@Reprint001]

Couldn't agree more! 👍🏻

[@schrodingerscat1863]

I actually had one, it wasn't great, the keyboard was horrible to use and it's Basic interpreter had some pretty serious bugs.

[@herseem]

I leaned a lot of programming skills on mine, and the upgrade to the iOric Altmos had a fantastic keyboard

[@DavidB-rx3km]

The UK power plugs were/are a marvel of engineering, with so many safety features designed into it, they thought of everything, at the same time I'm disturbed looking at my US plug half hanging out of the plug socket. Seriously have a look for videos on it, I am always impressed by how well they were thought out. They are not so nice however when you tread on it barefoot in the middle of the night. The bit broken off is the earth plug which is sometimes metal - it is also used to open the plug sockets.

[@GrosNeko]

My second computer after the ZX81, I actually had the Oric Atmos, its successor (the only changes were a mechanical keyboard, the colour red and black and a debugged basic). I learned to program with this little beast that I still own and with which I develop extensions, in particular to interface an sdcard and use the ram overlay. Thanks for this video,

[@JMTrains1]

Loved it! Thanks for the smiles and chuckles!

[@james_lockman]

To me, that keyboard makes it look like a big HP calculator.

[@PeranMe]

Lost it at ”very common random music time signature”!!! 😂❤

[@mryon314159]

I work with a lot of European TV in North America for a living (as well as my love of European retro computers) and many (nearly) modern TVs, as long as they are old enough to still have an analogue tuner, do work with NTSC, PAL and SECAM. Even if they don't advertise it. It's just cheaper to only have one tuner. The cheaper the TV is, the more likely your success. Check a thrift store for an off-brand, smallish TV. It might just work!

[@adz693]

Yeah - a lot of those cheap TVs do stuff they don't even advertise in instructions. I've got one of those cheap TV/DVD combis that plays VCDs and Karaoke CD+G discs without saying anywhere it does.

[@mryon314159]

@@adz693 I've opened up a couple that said "120v only" on the case to find that the PSU inside was actually 100v - 240v.

[@duanestarpilot]

awesome. not disappointed by the lack of video capture as sound is also always cool. i love it. but i'm also very curious to see what this thing outputs in terms of video/graphics. keep making awesome videos! i watch every single one.

[@gshingles]

The first rule of finding something is to look for something else. But I'm glad you didn't know that and found this. :)

[@tonyfishlock7240]

Hi Robin, your video made be laugh today 😂 Just listening to the Oric 1, I have one here In the uk, and they're a sweet little computer.... Thank You 😊

[@darrenfoulds]

That was stupid… stupid fun! 😀 Glad you made the video and I look forward to seeing more of the ORIC-1 in the future!

[@michaeltb1358]

My first computer. It had one of the best keyboards and software, but the loading from cassettes was very erratic. The reason it succeeded in France was that the only way to connect to a SECAM tv was using RGB. Amazing that you rpogrammed it blind.

[@RudysRetroIntel]

This is a first! A video on a vintage computer without video out! Excellent!! Btw, if you have an oscilloscope,l and schematics, you could make a composite out mod to it just before the RF output :)

[@regisdumoulin]

In Europe a lot of computers had a RGB output to connect to a TV through the then mandatory SCART plug. This gave a pretty good picture, much better than what could be achieved with an RF connection

[@gbraadnl]

RGB was more common in Europe, as most TVs (VCRs) and monitors like the 1084 came with a SCART connector. I only remember RF... composite and S-video came much later due to the pocket cameras

[@Okurka.]

Not all SCART connectors had RGB connected.

[@stevethepocket]

I guess now we know what was used to compose the soundtrack to _Crazy Bus._

[@jamesdecross1035]

Love how a little computer from the 1980s has left you quite 'tickled'.

[@dave4shmups]

Great video; that’s a really cool micro computer! I’ve read a little bit about this computer in Retro Gaming Magazine, which comes from the UK, but I didn’t know that it had all of those cool sound features!

[@CityXen]

Always wondered about these, thanks for this vid

[@grahammarsh4652]

41 years ago at the age of 17, I cycled to my local computer shop intending to buy the Oric. I was persuaded against it, and cycled home with a 48K Spectrum in my rucksack.

[@thomaswinston5142]

Well done 👍

[@PropaneWP]

You made the right choice. I had the chance to try the Oric-1 for a day and I didn't like it. The keyboard is terrible to use for any prolonged amount of time. Edit: Although, now looking at the keyboard of the 48K, that doesn't look great either. I have never tried it, though.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

Smart choice. I sold an Oric to a friend and went running to WHSmiths to buy a Spectrum with the cash! Suffice to say the new Oric owner wasn't impressed I'd bought a Spectrum having sold him "a far superior machine". Ah well. :D

[@goddessesstartrekonlinefle3061]

I was going to claim the lack of joystick ports was due to early British computers being more serious systems (not to be confused with powerful lol), then you went ahead and showed off the ZAP and EXPLODE commands and I decided, whilst that was generally true, clearly in this instance I'm completely wrong XD. Thanks! Great video, the Oric 1 seems immediately lovable as a system, though maybe its all in the telling ;). Cheers.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

A joystick port would have given the game away. ;)

[@goddessesstartrekonlinefle3061]

@@CurtOntheRadio lol

[@DropDeadFrederick]

The random music sounds a lot like the music played in the c64 game Ultimate Wizard when the screen is being drawn.

[@kins749]

The first home computer I ever saw at my friend's house, absolutely blew my 8 year old brain!

[@anon_y_mousse]

Reminds me of the music from Short Circuit. And now I need to find an Oric, because that is neat.

[@MJFallout]

lol Didn't know what I expected, but I was not disappointed.

[@Commodore128Mode3]

6/4 time? You're a musical genius! I wouldn't have figured that out unless it was written on paper! Great conclusion with added "drums"! Definitely sounds like IntelliVision!!

[@CrowContinuum]

I got to the video chapter labeled "ZAP, EXPLODE" and I thought the computer was going to zap you and then explode.

[@TheGreatAtario]

I would have thought finding a 120V wall wart capable of spitting out the correct DC power would have been way easier than accommodating a 240V wall wart

[@YerayRomano22shots]

12:13 I'm pretty sure that he's trying to summon something that we don't want to ever see

[@DavidWonn]

The EXPLODE sound vaguely reminds me of sounds from Combat and other games on the Atari 2600. Fun times. Also the keyboard clicking sounds remind me of typing on some AS/400 terminals.

[@erwinvandenberg1815]

Hi Robin, looking forward to part 2 of this video! I have an Oric Atmos in my collection. The video circuitry (part of the ULA) is pretty weird compared to most video chips of the time.

[@merman1974]

Ironically I have just been doing some research into Oric homebrew recently, there's some clever stuff out there. I love the built-in sounds. You also mentioned France - there's still a lot of dedicated Oric users there.

[@muckiSG]

No stupied idea, was really fun!

[@darrenpearsall4523]

Brilliant video Robin. Looking forward to an update if you manage to get video output working. The Oric-1 never appealed back in the day. Probably more down to the lack of support, and total domination of the market by the ZX Spectrum, at the time, here in the UK. Now, older and wiser, i'd love to get my hands on one. ❤

[@pjcnet]

I remember my dad bringing one of these back from work to test, I even remember playing a text adventure game on it.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

Zodiac? It was one of the games that came with it. "You are standing in a room. Exits are N,S,W."

[@pjcnet]

​@@CurtOntheRadio That's the type of text adventure and in those days I thought it was brilliant, but I was only about 12 years old so can't remember the title, but if it came with the machine it's likely.

[@stevejones4061]

In the early 1980s I worked for a radio station in the UK that transmitted a programme about the craze that was home computing as part of its education remit. A computer review on the radio who would have thought it, a bit like a KZbin review with no video output! More often than not, the companies forgot about their machines they had sent out for review (or the company went bankrupt) so I still have an Oric-1, Atmos and a Jupiter Ace tucked away in my loft. Sadly, the only machine of that time that I did have to return was the brilliant Memotech MTX 512.

[@standupmackan]

"There, that's more dancable" is really the "print on shirt, make a million bucks"-quote from this episode! Thank you! A funny little video.

[@polluks2]

A shirt? We want a dancing video!

[@SquallSf]

Hey Robin, great video ^_^ For part 2, I would strongly suggest to get Oric Atmos instead of Oric 1. It is pretty much the same machine with 64k of RAM (which was HUGE for that time), but funny enough - it was adverted as 48k (to be in line with Spectrum best at that time, I guess). Video used 8 vivid colors (but is not 3bpp) so games or programs looked quite good for its time (and especially compared to Apple II). The characters could be customized so the text mode is pretty much what we would call today - tiles with 1 tile layer. Another funny fact: most people that actually know and use(d) that computer think that it is French! Because it was great hit in France and most of the software was in French. P.S. If you still have problem with adapters, you can try an emulators for part 2!

[@tedthrasher9433]

I wouldn’t have been able to wait until I had the video cable, either!

[@fattomandeibu]

On why there's no composite: RGB SCART was more common on TVs in France and England than composite ever was, although SCART does also accept composite with a passive adaptor, which is how most American and Japanese systems were packaged, usually with some kinda pamphlet letting you know that an actual SCART cable could be purchased separately, usually at around £15-20 if the system supported it. Was actually a big pet annoyance for me. I'd buy an expensive game console like a PS2, open the box and then get a crappy cable included. They even included the SCART adaptor in the box because they knew that you'd only have SCART or RF inputs on your TV and the cable they were including was useless to the vast majority of users. I'd understand RF, cheap TVs tended to be RF only, but it was rare to see a TV with composite without also including an RGB in, as well. I've only ever seen 1 such TV in person. Another, more related to the video content, I guess, is Kevin Toms who made Football Manager for every format under the sun said the Oric was the worst to work on, because it was near impossible to get the game working on all 3 types of Oric. The Oric-1, Oric Atmos and Oric-1 with Oric Atmos ROM installed. He managed it in the end, but said it was a nightmare for how little they sold.

[@paul_boddie]

The SCART connector was almost ubiquitous by the end of the 1980s in the UK, but at the time of the Oric's release, not many monitors or televisions in the UK were offered with it. Thus, the Oric follows the lead of the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron by offering a DIN connector instead, presumably with TTL output levels, typically for driving dedicated colour monitors. Later on, Philips monitors that were bundled with various later Acorn machines (presumably also Commodore and other manufacturers' models) employed the SCART connector often described as a "Euroconnector" to support "analogue" RGB input. By then, SCART was becoming established as a standard. The earlier Acorn machines also offered composite outputs that were monochrome by default, modifiable to colour by making a link on the board, this intended for high clarity output using relatively high-resolution monochrome displays. I think it was only later that composite inputs started appearing on televisions, largely to facilitate connecting things like camcorders.

[@phill6859]

Scart CAN carry conposite, svideo and RGB. But the oric1 will only output RGB, so you won't be able to convert it to composite. France required scart RGB inputs because their government introduced data terminals that everyone had, phone directory was on it. No idea what else.

[@fattomandeibu]

@@phill6859 Yes, that's why I was so annoyed at getting those composite cables with my PS2. Such terrible picture quality. S-video was very non-standard on SCART, and from my experience(keep in mind, the only thing I ever used it for was connecting a PC to a TV, so may have been the fault of the graphics card) also had a fairly blurry picture. The Minitel(the data terminal thing) allowed for stuff such as internet banking etc. Very interesting stuff. Never lived in France so never got to use it, but it was very ahead of its time for 1982.

[@davidsantiagoalonso]

Well that was a first... Using the book to emulate a monitor. Still a fun little video!

[@ShanetheFreestyler]

12:13 Cool! It's the Crazybus theme song!

[@domramsey]

Amusingly, that plug simply wouldn't work in the UK. The earth pin is required to open the shutters in the socket before you can push the live & neutral pins in. Even if it's just a plastic prong.

[@CptJistuce]

Unless you jam something in there to open it. The irony that someone might be cramming a paper clip into the outlet BECAUSE of a safety feature is... well, it is something.

[@phill6859]

​@@CptJistuceor plug it into the socket that the earth pin is still stuck in.

[@CptJistuce]

@@phill6859 Possible, if it didn't break off in storage instead. Or if you only want to ever use it in that specific location.

[@AtariForeva]

It was somewhat popular in former Yugoslavia and assembled by a official distributer under the name Orc Nova 64, AKA Oric Atmos.

[@6502Nerd]

Haha thanks for the mention about typing ZAP. It's one of the built in sound effects of Oric BASIC 😅👍🏽

[@vicenary]

Please pop the cover off the step-up transformer and check that the live and neutral on the UK connectors aren't swapped on one of them; with the configuration they're in on your device, it is ultra tempting to just run the wires straight across from the left live to the right neutral, which can be a shocking problem.

[@philipstephens5960]

When I bought my first computer (an Apple ][+ clone from Taiwan that I purchased via mail order) back in the 80s, I chose to buy the monitor locally. But the computer arrived first, and I was so excited to try it out I ended up typing in a short machine language program blind that played some musical notes (Applesoft BASIC didn't have commands to play music, although in hindsight I could have POKEd the I/O location of the speaker in a FOR loop to generate a low tone). So yeah, seeing Robin write code blind to play some music on the Oric-1 was not at all strange to me.

[@cacheman]

I still remember the one and _only_ time I saw a program listing for the ORIC-1 in one of the many home computer magazines I read in the 80s. Not a very common machine, at least not around my part of the woods. Even that listing had some editorial comment about its rarity.

[@frankowalker4662]

Cool. I wanted an Oric when it first came out, but we got a ZX Spectrum instead, we already had a ZX81 so it seemed like a natural progression. (I've been in love with Speccys ever since). But I've always had a picture of the Oric on my bedroom wall. LOL BTW, the Oric uses the same RF modulator as the Speccy, so you could do the same RF to Composite conversion. It would still be PAL but at least it would be a comp signal.

[@thenoblerot]

That keyb looks a bit like a HP calculator

[@thebaldconvict]

Earth pin broken off, devices that don't need it generally have a plastic pin instead of metal as without a pin at all the flaps covering the live and neutral on the plug socket wont open. Large and scary but arguably the best plug/socket in the world

[@alogie]

It does have a major safety flaw, if you happen to step on one with the pins facing up. Pain that Lego can only dream of. 😁

[@thebaldconvict]

@@alogie There speaks a person of experience! Yes indeed, the midnight tread on the vacuum plug is a killer haha

[@stephenhill4492]

@@alogieBeen there: done that! It’s incredibly painful.

[@DaveF.]

@@alogie Thre's also no insulation on the live/neutral pins. I dunno where that PSU came from - but don't think it's ever been legal in the UK.

[@alogie]

@@DaveF. The requirement to sleeve the other two pins didn’t appear until August 84, so this was likely OK when the machine was sold.

[@config2000]

The Oric 1 was a fun little computer. I used to play Spooky Mansion on it. The keyboard + blip sound was much more satisfying compared to my previous Zx81's membrane offering.

[@8_Bit]

Yes, this keyboard is much, much nicer than the ZX81's. It's funny that the keyboard received so many complaints given some of the alternatives.

[@cpm1003]

"Oric" makes me think of vacuum cleaners.

[@alogie]

Not sure if it’s true, but I heard that the name came from Aurac, the snippy computer from the BBC sci-fi show “Blake’s 7”.

[@joneggelton]

@@alogie True !

[@paszTube]

Great, now I want an Oric-1! And I didn’t see any video!

[@colonelkomarov622]

One of the reasons it had a success in France it because all french TV used SCART (was in law since 1978) and lots of computers didn't had SCART pin at that time

[@elnebuloso9391]

Allways an adventure to fiddle around with vintage hardware and screen output. 😅 The FX are way better then the beeps I'm able to get out of breadbin's SID.

[@beltanewalk8797]

Just wait till you discover the background and foreground colour attributes for the screen. These have to be placed (poked or plotted) on the screen and take up one 8 x 8 character location. They affect everything to the right of that location on that row or until there is a different attribute further along. Alternatively just use the colour command for a screen wide colour for text or background. Accidently over writing attributes with on screen text can do your head in sometimes

[@CurtOntheRadio]

Ah, yeah, that rings (distant) bells. What a nightmare for everything you did (or rather, everything you tried to do). That system literally ended my interest in Oric, I'm sure.

[@dannyarnold9823]

Zap, Ping, Shoot, Explode the only fun you could have with the Oric

[@3622Dave]

Don't forget Zorgon's Revenge!

[@herseem]

Not true! There some fun games. And I wrote an adventure game for my friends to play

[@CurtOntheRadio]

​@@3622Dave Thanks for reminding me of the name of that! That was a pretty tidy game. Follow up to Xenon? One of very few decent Oric titles. I remember more (very) bad ones - Dinky Kong, Dig Dog, Island of Death. Fair play, Dinky Kong remains the absolute worst version of Donkey Kong I have ever tried. That's some achievement. But Dig Dog is also the very worst instance of Dig Dug I have tried. So that's competition, I suppose. Two wins for the Oric.

[@pederb82]

What a charming little guy!

[@retroandgaming]

This was a nice one! :)

[@argoneum]

8b Atari music, also can be typed blindly: 10 FOR A=0 TO 15 20 FOR B=0 TO 15 30 SOUND 0,A,B,15 40 FOR X=0 TO 50:NEXT X 50 NEXT B:NEXT A or as one-liner (which plays faster): F.A=0TO15:F.B=0TO15:SO.0,A,B,15:F.X=0TO50:N.X:N.B:N.A

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

If you connect the RF output to an NTSC monitor, it might display video but it will just roll continuously. But, I have found that some older monitors actually can tolerate PAL signals and can even be adjusted with the vertical hold to keep it stationary.

[@llaffer]

I can definately hear the Intellivison-quality of the audio with that ZAP/EXPLODE program.

[@ahmad-murery]

Little funny computer. The MUSIC instruction looks similar to the SOUND instruction in MSX The PSG chip in MSX will keep playing the last tone and you can use the BEEP command to reset the PSG (maybe similar to what the click sound did here in the ORIC) Looking forward to see how the video will turn out Thanks Robin!

[@thefumigator]

You may try RF out, in some cases you just get a black and white image with european devices. Rgb to d-sub (vga) would be the best option for this one. Great video!

[@duncanfairbairn2195]

UK computers weren't "cheap" with no joystick port, they just focused more on practical applications rather than just pure gaming.

[@rager1969]

Apple II and Tandy CoCo had joystick ports, too.

[@edgeeffect]

I loved using zap ping shoot and explode as a poor substitute for a drum machine... and repeatedly telling my friends that those keywords were originally made in FORTH.

[@what-uc]

Ah! I see you have the machine that goes PING!

[@simontay4851]

PING!

[@DaveF.]

Cool - the Oric, like the Jupiter Ace or Dragon or New Brain is a UK computer I know almost nothing at all about. Really interesting. Hope you manage to find exactly what it was you were trying to find in the first place.

[@WilliamHostman]

Even the Apple II had a joystick port, albeit not external. (16 pin DIP socket; on the motherboard; by the 80's, usually broken out to one or two 9-pin connectors).

[@carlyleroad]

We had one of these. The only way to load a programme from tape was to plug in the din lead and turn the volume up to maximum. We used to put heavy books on the cassette player speaker but it still annoyed the hell out of my mom.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

Plug headphones in too. ;)

[@carlyleroad]

@@CurtOntheRadio Plugging in the mono earphone (it was before we had headphone sockets on things) took input priority and disconnected the DIN connection.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

@@carlyleroad Ours worked fine. I guess depended on make/model tape. You were unlucky. ;) Especially if using 300 baud - 30 mins to load 40K. Jeez!

[@MaxieRetro]

4:3 Sharp Aquos TVs from the 2000s are great for multiformat RF and AV!

[@stevethepocket]

"Big and scary" is probably what you want out of a plug that draws over 200 volts. North American stove/dryer outlets are another good example of that. Hey, speaking of outlets, anyone know why the outlets on the converter have so many extra center holes?

[@Metal_Maxine]

It's an "international" outlet intended to fit many different plug types.

[@bread8070]

The Elan Enterprise 64/128 had a built in PING sound effect which does a great job of demoing the custom sound chip with a very metallic sounding ping. Sadly it’s the only built in sound effect.

[@datlaunchystark1385]

12:15 Crazy Bus OST

[@mikegarland4500]

That was fun. I've never heard of that system before, so that was all new to me. Thanks for doing this one. And that closing tune, man, your best yet!! Make sure you get a good contract with a music producer. ;-)

[@klocugh12]

ZAP and EXPLODE? Robot uprising is coming!

[@awilliams1701]

I'm like......isn't that a vacuum cleaner? Different spelling, but it sure is!

[@Lachlant1984]

The Amstrad CPC464 had one built in joystick port, as I believe did the Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2 and probably the +3 also, so I think just the cheaper/very early British home coputers lacked joystick sockets. I understand you could get a joystick adaptors for the Spectrum. I'm not sure if the Acorn Electron has a joystick port or not.

[@DbugII]

If you have a monitor like a Commodore 1084, you can easily make a cable by connecting pin to pin the R, G, B and Ground pins to the matching ones on the Commodore, and the Sync to both HSync and VSync, you should get the picture working, it's basically 50hz TTL. You can also switch to 60hz using some command codes or poke.