Five Rare British Micro Computers - Show & Tell

[@RMCRetro]

What would you like to see more of? Let us know! And be sure to give Keith a sub over at: The Digital Orphanage: kzbin.info And check out: The Swindon Museum of Computing: www.museumofcomputing.org.uk/ Thanks for watching! Neil - RMC

[@0SteveBristow]

But...but.....Camputers Lynx!!!!? ☹️ A great video as usual.... Thank you.

[@InsaneWayne355]

Love to see deep dives into the MTX and Enterprise.

[@boblowes]

There's one machine I'd love to see covered more - the Robotron Z1013, of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). It's a 1984 machine, designed to compete with the growing home computer scene which was doing so well in West Germany (and the rest of Europe and the world). Robotron were a state-owned affair that made computers for government and industrial use, who were charged wth creating a cheap home micro that would help keep the GDR competitive with the west. Unfortunately, West Germany had a plant where they manufactured Commodore 64s, while Robotron used chips that were rejected from other machines due to performance or manufacturing issues. the rest of the computer was similarly cheap - a single board machine, with keyboard that would make the ZX80 look like a touch-typists dream, you had to assemble your own power supply, case, and procure a television to act as the display. Like the ZX80, it was entirely character based, with no graphics routines. It's also all in German. There don't seem to be any in mint-on-box examples, as everyone who bought one had to fashion a better case than the vacuum-formed tray the machine arrived in. And as soon as the Berlin wall fell, those pesky West Germans sold their Eastern brothers and sisters their old C64s, while they went and bought a nice new Amiga or Atari ST. 1984-finally-an-east-german-home-computer.html

[@ratspike8017]

I have to vote for the Grundy Newbrain simply because of the name. If you can get hold of one of them I would love to see it working... but that might be a Treasure to Treasure episode??

[@dj9volt]

RetroManCave id love to see a video on the Oric-1 and Atmos as well as the memotech and the enterprise 128

[@EgoChip]

I want to see full episodes on all of the computers featured in this video. This video was great and all to see rare machines, but fact sheets are not enough, I want to see them in action.

[@fensoxx]

Yep second this. Maybe a flight sim on the Enterprise 128

[@ian_b]

Thirded.

[@MrDuncl]

If you made the episode long enough you could probably review every game sold in WH Smiths (in the 1980s a major UK retailer of computers) for them back in the day. Do that for the Spectrum and the episode would still be going next year.

[@digitalarchaeologist5102]

Absolutely. We need a follow up on how the machines ran. What games were like. How good or not they were to use.

[@jkdsteve]

Yes, big old tease by not seeing these powered on and working...especially the Enterprise 128, since that's a complete new one to me.

[@hybridplc]

RetroManCave talks to a future version of himself.

[@Lordborak316]

I thought it was he uncle?

[@RisingRevengeance]

They could honestly be brothers. Nice beards aside they have very similiar facial features.

[@uselessDM]

I was thinking the same thing lol They do look eerily similar.

[@fredsmith1970]

which one is which?

[@bitwize]

He's a Time Lord.

[@ambroselwatson]

PEEL IT! Peel the label!

[@Oncampus2k]

“No retrobriting needed” 8-Bit Guy has left the chat.

[@yamigekusu]

**The Retro Future has left the chat**

[@dotmatrixmoe]

**LGR has left the chat.**

[@TheDigitalOrphanage]

It was great to finally get to sit behind the lovely wood desk, surrounded by all the interesting things in the cave, talking about old computers with a like minded person! I'm excited to see the Enterprise, Memotech, and SAM Coupé in action!

[@Farmelle]

I literally spotted the Atmos from the video thumbnail. I am in the process of making the Re-Oric (a 10x10cm Oric1/Atmos replacement board with SMT components and a few other goodies) and I'm also working on Project Atmos(fear), which is a re-imagined successor to the Atmos, akin to what the Sam-Coupe was for the Spectrum.

[@1337Shockwav3]

Neato ... do you have a website for the project? I kinda regret giving away the Atmos I had at one point, but on the other hand semi-modern mass storage solutions cost an arm and a leg

[@Farmelle]

@@1337Shockwav3 I don't. It was only supposed to be a pet project. I posted it on the Facebook Oric owners page and a bunch of people were like "I want one! Take my money!!" So I'm making it into something that meets their needs. Like I said, it was initially just a proof of concept to see if it was possible (and it was, just)

[@ibisum]

@@1337Shockwav3 Look up Cumana Reborn and Erebus - no longer leaving you limbless!

[@marklechman2225]

Having grown up with Atari, Apple and Commodore over here in the US, I really enjoy being able to learn more about the other side of the computer revolution in the west, especially in the UK. So much amazing tech with wonderful stories behind them!

[@thedungeondelver]

The MTX512 was a fascinating machine: it had the ability to display windowed graphics (with BASIC commands, no less) and featured a forerunner of HyperCard.

[@mstandish]

That is really cool. I would love to see a demo of that.

[@clangerbasher]

That's interesting re HyperCard. What was the application called please?

[@thedungeondelver]

@@clangerbasher It was called "Noddy".

[@clangerbasher]

@@thedungeondelver Thanks. I remember back in the day thinking HyperCard was so clever I was expecting the tech to be everywhere. I know in many ways "browsers" and off shoots have brought it to us, but not exactly.

[@clangerbasher]

@@thedungeondelver Here it is!!!!!!!!!!! www.primrosebank.net/computers/mtx/tools/noddy_plus/mtx_noddy_plus.htm

[@ojkolsrud1]

The Oric Atmos has a stunning look, to be honest!

[@tonybrice7942]

This. I remember seeing it in the shops as a teenager and being amazed by it. I already had a C64 by then and loved that machine. Otherwise I'd have probably tried to convince mum to buy one.

[@joefish6091]

horribly obsolete when it was released, 6502 when everybody else was Z80 at the minimum and 32bit was on the scene, the predecessor Oric 1 wasn't much better, same innards improved case for the Atmos, both used ONLY Teletext graphics, supposed to be CEEFAX machines !!!!!!

[@portnaluinge]

Man, I remember lusting after that Memotech - purely because the industrial design was so deeply cool.

[@dalriada842]

I did as well. I still have old computer magazines from the period that had an article on it. I must have pored over the pictures like it was a porno magazine.

[@davefb]

Ha just looked and gone 'blimey, Id forgot that but I totally wanted it as a kid!"

[@speedbird737]

I loved typing these basic commands into the Oric when it used to be out on display in Dixons back in the 80s! ZAP, PING, SHOOT and EXPLODE

[@Drew-Dastardly]

I did the same in the Boots and WH Smiths. It made me realize the Oric was totally shit. Why? Because all processing would stop while the machine played the arcade sound and then only resume afterwards. Totally absurd. Nothing like the BBC Micro SOUND and ENVELOPE commands that would process sound in parallel with running code and therefore graphics and game playfield.

[@markpenrice6253]

A feature later robbed by STOS/AMOS game programming BASIC on the 16-bits... :D

[@ibisum]

@@Drew-Dastardly Ermm, you foolish kid! Oric has SOUND, and PLAY .. and MUSIC .. commands as well .. you just didn't discover them, it seems. Some of the greatest music you will find on the 8-bit machines was made on the Oric, with its independent sound chip supporting multichannel audio.

[@MrBrianms]

The Oric 1 and Oric Atmos looked great. I had tried the Oric 1 at WH Smiths when the computers were running along a shelf for anyone to use. I remember the BASIC Language, Graphics and sound was an upgrade to the Sinclair ZX80/ZX81.

[@ukcroupier]

I remember thinking that Memotech was the coolest looking thing ever, I still do :)

[@chromatiCityGame]

I had that Memotech machine way back then... Bought it from flea market with few bucks! Never really "got it", because we had no documentation for it in Finland and there was no internet then to find out more :D I was a curious teen and broke it in to a million pieces and "studied" it's parts :D And thanks to machines like that, still build and fix computers on semi-weekly basis today!

[@SeverityOne]

It was sturdy for sure. A solid 1 mm brushed aluminium. Its BASIC had some incredibly awkward commands such as GENPAT (generate pattern) to define a sprite, and you can probably imagine what CTLSPR did. Then, it had a built-in assembler, a built-in debugger, and something called Noddy, which was a language to build text screens. A lot of good ideas, just not always equally well executed, and the manual was big, but not always practical. During its lifetime, it always struggled: never enough software, hideously expensive hardware, and community support was understandably difficult in the non-connected 1980s.

[@paullee3660]

I remember the adverts in the magazines. It looks so cool. I wanted one badly, but dad bought a commodore plus 4. Which also had bugger all software.

[@1337Shockwav3]

Sadly it's all looks, overall the machine is quite underwhelming.

[@SeverityOne]

@@1337Shockwav3 Nah, it's pretty much average for the time it came out in, and probably even a bit above average. Bear in mind that MSX, with exactly the same specs, had yet to come out.

[@kaminutter]

It will be nice to see more on the Memotech and Enterprise machines. Also would be nice to see videos on the Jupiter Ace and Einstein computers which always seem to be left out of collections.

[@MrDuncl]

Yes. I actually knew someone who bought an Einstein back in the day.

[@SteampunkEngineering]

@@MrDuncl I still have my Jupiter Ace, somewhere. The built-in language was FORTH.

[@metalheadmalta]

@@MrDuncl The Einstein could actually run MSX software easily, totally compatible... It could also emulate the Spectrum. Dearly wanted one, but it was too expensive.

[@lordevyl8317]

Really like the fact that it (the Enterprise) has its own built-in joystick. Hope it contained a port for an extra one though, because if that think breaks you would have been fucked if you were into gaming at all.

[@lordevyl8317]

Wasn't the Einstein technically a Taiwanese computer though

[@srfrg9707]

Oric-1 was my first computer (Oric Atmos the 2nd one). The reasons why it worked so well in France are : Same CPU as the Apple ][. RGB output for scart TV. High resolution. the reason why it's labeled 48K and 68K of ram is that the Rom and the Ram overlay on the same bus adress range. You can toggle from Rom to ram, and this was used by Tangerine to load the system from floppies. Of course, in normal use, the overlayed part of the ram is useless. The lack of on/off swich was the main cause of failure. The connector was not capable to survive that much hard reset cycles. I learn 6502 machine code on it.

[@ibisum]

One thing: the RAM overlay *isn't* entirely useless - if you had a micro drive, you could access the full 64k and still have a DOS at hand as well.

[@Phantom8Bit]

The VIA chip had unused lines, it's surprising they didn't use that to page between ROM & RAM.

[@robertdicken5439]

My first computer was an Oric 1. Set me off on 50+ years of computing and still enjoying my gaming, now retired and 66 years old.

[@Funk-That]

I was lucky enough to have all those machines in my collection 15+ years ago. I was even lucky enough to have found a Science of Cambridge Mk14 which I paid zero pounds for !! Unfortunately my wife started to get a little unhappy that my collection was migrating from the full garage to the dining table :-( ... ebay got the lot. I Wish I would of hung onto them now and put the wife on eBay instead lol.

[@firsteerr]

i can remember back in the old days standing looking through the window of the newly opened "computer shop" with my mate munching on a packet of outerspacers dreaming of ALL these machines with their HUGE memories !

[@kins749]

Great video. More like this please. The first computer I ever saw was a friend's dad's Oric 1, I'll never forget my complete wonderment at seeing a computer - in a house - wow!

[@dickbison]

0:29 How... how did everyone resist peeling off that protective film over the years? :o

[@joefish6091]

because it barely got used, prob spent most of its life in a cupboard. Not a lot you can do or want to do with Teletext graphics.

[@SirHackaL0t.]

I had an Oric-1. Great machine. I used to sit and program it in my bedroom on our portable TV.

[@adamfreeman3652]

ALL OF THEM! please do videos for all of them, I find all the historical computer stories interesting. Great video as always.

[@ordinosaurs]

French here. The Oric 1 was my first computer. But in France, to switch the TV to the auxiliary Péritel input (aka SCART), you need to deliver a very well regulated 12V to switch the circuit. And this was a royal PITB, if I may say so, so much so I was using a motorbike battery as no transformer I found was stable enough. All in all, I used the computer way less than I wanted to because of that. The last nail in the coffin was when I was given a big beautiful and very advanced CP/M machine. The Oric became a closet queen in an instant. Still got it, by the way. Also saved an Atmos later, gifted by a family member years later. But what I really wished for from Tangerine was a Stratos. This had me salivating for a while because Minitel compatibility ;-)

[@LegendaryGauntlet]

I remember seeing the Atmos in person when i was a kid and was really impressed by its looks. Still am, it's one of the best looking machines from the 80's !

[@ibisum]

Check out the Telestrat too!

[@ukmk3supra]

The Atmos would definitely pique my interest as a video all on it's own - i'd love to see the thing in action. That and the MTX just look so quintessentially 1980's - everything was black, with a red stripe or highlights - fitted with the style perfectly.

[@ibisum]

Some of the 21st Century Oric software that's been produced would blow our minds if we'd known back in the teenager 80's, that such things were possible. Check out www.defence-force.org/index.php?page=games for some examples with screenshots, and if you're interested find yourself an Emulator (there are a few to choose from - my favourite is Oricutron, but ClockSignal is also worth a look) and get an account on oric.org/ to go through the classics. Seriously, if we'd known what the Oric could do back in the day, things would've been quite different .. new graphics modes were discovered and new techniques for exploiting them resulted in some FABULOUS looking games this century.

[@richardclarke376]

I remember reading an article on the Enterprise in a physics class in college in early 83. Spec blew me away - too bad they took 2 years to launch it

[@sma7530]

Yup - I read perhaps the same article which blew me away. So now I own an Enterprise 128 !

[@frigbychilwether]

Hi, I remember drooling over the Enterprise, when it was called the Elan, when I saw it in Your Computer Magazine. Thought it would be the computer for me. By the time it came out had moved on. The built in joystick was for the young game playing me a great selling point. Would be interested in seeing it in action so I can see what I missed.

[@metalheadmalta]

You're not alone. I wanted it immediately... however, coming from a 'larger family', it was quite impossible. The price for it here in Malta was quite higher than the quoted British prices, which was daft. Eventually it was a flop here. I moved from the TI-99/4a, to an MSX, and then to the C64... On both Z80 and 6502 I learned assembly language easily.... In my opinion, it still looks stunning enough today.

[@1337Shockwav3]

@@metalheadmalta Don't let the looks decieve you ... the keyboard looks quite good, but is in fact on par with the zx81 due to keys getting constantly jammed and bouncing. Technically still a severely underrated machine. If it had come out 1-2 years earlier I can definitely see it compete among the popular commodore, atari, sinclair and amstrad machines. Sadly it ended up as a sidenote.

[@ibisum]

@@1337Shockwav3 There are quite a few of these available on the Hungarian market, in case anyone is interested .. it was a popular system in that country for a while.

[@jasejj]

Camputers Lynx, Tatung Einstein and Grundy Newbrain deserve their own tributes :)

[@SirRandom]

I wrote 2 adventure games for the 48k Oric-1, "Starprobe" and "Land of Illusion" (released by Tansoft). I also worked on a game for a pre-production Enterprise, but the project was abandoned before completion. Happy times!! 😁

[@ian_b]

As a ZX81 owner, I lusted after most of these to different degrees. I remember for a while particularly wanting an MTX.

[@generalbyzantine8735]

The Matra Alice was a TRS-80 MC10 in a red case. What made it "French" was that Hachette is a huge publishing house with many magazines and books aimed at teens and young adults. I remember buying "Jeux & Stratégies" mags from France so long ago and it was impossible not to see an ad or two for the Alice. Maybe there was some pressure on the editors to include Alice versions of the game listings at the end of the mags, but my copies of those magazines are long gone so I can't check. :)

[@ordinosaurs]

And the Moebius artwork...

[@MrDuncl]

Hachette is still big in France doing part works of things like reproductions of French Dinky Cars.

[@TheTurnipKing]

22:32 That the thing about driving down the price, it made it possible for people to get involved with computers and upgrade as their wallet allowed and preferences allowed, and I think that's the key to it's enduring success.

[@MrDuncl]

Absolutely, especially when nobody you knew owned a computer. In 1980 my new Honda motorbike cost £500. Something like a TRS80 was over half that. Getting the price under £100 made buying a computer far easier to justify. As there was no real computing press in 1980 Sinclair advertised to Electronics enthusiasts in magazines like Practical Electronics, in which he had previously advertised "HiFi", Calculators and Watches.

[@boatofcar3273]

Excellent video Neil. One thing that makes this video special is you really get a sense of scale of these machines since you’ve sat a 48k Speccy there for comparison. Brilliant idea!

[@ZaPpaul]

My good friend at the time was obsessed with getting the Oric-1 and it took weeks of talking him into getting the Spectrum. He thanked us later :)

[@saintuk70]

The Memotech, what a fantastic looking device - I've retro-micro envy now! Can we get a full episode, please? I remember the Orics well, friends had them. Of course, the ZXs.....plenty said about them....and plenty of time spent on them too in my school's computer club.

[@TranceTrousers]

I loved this episode! I have experience with five of these lovely old computers. I own a ZX80 (bright white, boxed and in mint condition), a boxed ZX81, a boxed Oric 1, and a boxed Memotech MTX 512 with the Memotech branded DMX-80 printer (also boxed!). I used to own an Atmos back in the day but sold it because I just didn't like it. I much prefer the look of the Oric 1 to be honest. I also have a mint condition, boxed, Jupiter Ace too - would love to see something about this. In fact I have quite a few home computers and associated peripherals from the 1970s and 80s, twenty-one to be precise. My latest acquisition being a Commodore PET 2001-8 from 1977. Great channel Neil, keep up the good work :-)

[@HarryMorris69]

Worked in a computer shop in 1985, peak 8 bit era. Software was basically ZX Spectrum, C64, 1% BBC, 1% everything else. Nobody ever came in for Oric, and we never saw any of the other stuff for sale in software catalogues.

[@barthonhoff5547]

The Oric-1 suffered from keys no longer responding, unless pressing harder. I brought an Atmos, used Author to write my school reports. And I still consider it as one of the nicest serious machine at the time. I sold it, replacing it with a Sinclair QL with more memory and more reliable storage.

[@Acheronus80]

Saw the Oric 1 and Atmos for sale in Goto Computers in Slough... Always thought the Oric-1 had Tic Tacs for keys!

[@ibisum]

I learned to touch-type on that keyboard and whenever I feel it now I get all those muscle memory moments back. And when I switch to my Atmos (still got both systems, as well as a Telestrat), I find it oddly disconcerting somehow. ;P

[@merlinathrawes6191]

Best version of Gemini Man I've seen. My friend had an Enterprise. As it liked to boast: "With Obsolescence built out!" lol.

[@DrLilo]

That Memotech actually kinda looks like if Sinclair designed the Commodore 64...

[@Skaera75b]

I DEFINITELY want to see a video on the Memotech- never heard of it, looks like a fun machine to play with! Also definitely the Enterprise- that looks interesting. Any chance of more information on that Alice machine? I hadn't heard of it previously...

[@metalheadmalta]

The Memotech keyboard was nothing to write home about though. Very short travel. :-(

[@MrDuncl]

That is the interesting thing about 1980s computing. What was happening in one country was entirely different to another. For example the Commodore Plus 4 was the computer most enthusiasts had in Hungary.

[@metalheadmalta]

@@MrDuncl Totally right... The Spectrum, although popular, had actually a smaller following than the C64. The C16 and plus4 never even ventured here. The C128 was a bit popular... Two massive computers here in Malta were at that time (1983-1986), the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A (huge sales, and which I still use!), and the Goldstar FC-200 MSX (which I stupidly sold.. kicking myself) Then the Amiga came out. And it was lights out for everyone else.

[@MrDuncl]

@@metalheadmalta You use a TI-99/4A !!! Do you have an expansion memory or something. I bought one new when they were selling them off for half the price of a Spectrum. I kept it about six months because the shared video RAM made it incredibly slow with user written programs. Its replacement was a Toshiba MSX bought for a similar price which I still have, along with the optional music keyboard. When I bought the MSX, Commodore Plus 4s were being sold off for a similar price complete with a bundle of the five games that were available for them back then. In the UK the C64 lasted as long as the Amiga as it was about 1/3rd the price and had thousands of games available for it.

[@metalheadmalta]

@@MrDuncl I have a TI with a few games and Extended Basic. The Ext.Basic is absolutely incredible as with the sprites, you can give them a 'Call Motion' command, and you can forget about them, as they are handled by interrupts. You just change x and y 'force', and they do their own thing. This facilitates a HUGE LOT of work and obviously, speeds up the machine which is bottlenecked by TI themselves. They had, literally, a world-builder on their hands, but were too greedy to allow others to create great games. Parsec, TI-Invaders, Bigfoot and Star-Trek were absolutely incredible games, and still hold very well to this very day... I am still a mad mad fan of the 64, and have fitted a 'Leonardo Arduino' and a quad core motherboard in an empty 64 shell and use it regularly....as in DAILY

[@RobUttley]

I loved the look and feel of the Memotech, it always seemed a solid machine in all senses of the word. I only ever saw them in Laskeys, and never knew anyone that ever actually bought one. And the Atmos was always a very attractive computer. I never knew that the Atmos was really an Oric-1 in essence, I always assumed there was some kind of reasonable functionality/feature lift. (I totally would have peeled that sticker off, too). The Enterprise always came across a bit like the later Sam Coupe - seemed to be a good machine on paper but you never saw them anywhere at all. Another great video Neil (& Keith!), many thanks!

[@SomePeopleCallMeWulfman]

I still think the Oric Atmos is one of the sexiest micros ever created!

[@trendyfunandgames4759]

What about the Matra Alice, sexy name and sexy red

[@TotiTolvukall]

I remember selling the Oric-1 along with the ZX series of machines, BBC-B, Dragon 32/64 and the Jupiter Ace :D Those were the days...

[@johnhaines4163]

That brought back some memories. I bought a kit Microtan 65 at the end of 1980 and expanded it to take floppy discs. It was a dead end so I looked at a lot of other computers before settling on the BBC B.

[@mrt.7146]

OMG - the Memotech MTX512. I remember reading about it in some UK trade magazine back in the day. Ahhh, the memories - thanks for this video! Great stuff!

[@hernancoronel]

The Timex Sinclair ZX81 was sold by the thousands here in Buenos Aires, later there was also a local company named Czerweny that licensed and sold the ZX81 as well. I programmed my first game in a ZX81 of a friend of mine in the early 80s! I remember I had to keep tweaking the code to avoid running out of memory. Thank you for the great video!

[@whatamalike]

More Sam Coupe!

[@goesbysteve]

I had an Oric 1 but it didn’t have enough variety of games so gave in and bought a spectrum.

[@ibisum]

That has changed these days - so many new titles written for the Oric-1 in the 21st Century. We even got an Elite port, Impossible Mission, School Daze and Oricium too! And did you know that the Oric-1 version of Manic Miner is widely considered the BEST version of Manic Miner ever made?

[@goesbysteve]

Jay Vaughan wow

[@Nagytalop]

I'm 44 and I still have my Enterprise 128 from my childhood. On Hungary this machine have a fan base. You can buy an SD card adapter, new keyboard membrane, 2 MB RAM expansion and the machine is capable to handling 8 MB of memory. On the expansion port can use floppy controller, IDE HDD controller and many other stuffs. SymbOS have EP 128 support too... I think it's a great machine and I love it. :)

[@stevewf]

I remember loving the look of the Oric-1 when I saw it in on display in Dixon's in the 80's. But ended up buying a Tatung Einstein as my first computer, which i used for a few years until the Amiga 500 came out. Happy days ! (I'm wondering if the Tatung was underrated in its day, as I thought it was a superb machine, but pretty much nobody remembers it !! ).

[@give_me_my_nick_back]

Black+red coloring some 30 years before it became trendy on computers :D I totally dig that design of atmos :D

[@Acheronus80]

Would love to see an episode on the Camputers Lynx

[@jon-paulfilkins7820]

I remember them being about at the time, strangely the ONLY retailer I saw that stocked them in my area was a Camera Specialist. Never saw them in any of the computer retailers that sprung up.

[@Acheronus80]

@@jon-paulfilkins7820 they had them in Laskys, with an Apple II, Commodore +4, Spectrum 48k and an MSX.

[@jon-paulfilkins7820]

@@Acheronus80 Must admit the Apple II was something I saw in shops only a couple of times, and like the Lynx, not at retailers you would associate with computers. I Don't remember a Laskys near me, but I am aware of the name so might mis-remember.

[@Acheronus80]

@@jon-paulfilkins7820 www.gremlinarchive.com/index.php/2016/05/27/laskys-catalogue-pages/

[@lordevyl8317]

Jupiter Ace and Sam Coupe as well

[@osgrov]

I love all of these, and would happily welcome future videos on any of them. Or you know, all of them. ;) The MTX is just sexy, I'd give a lot to own one.. Do that one first, please. I've always had a soft spot for the Atmos as well. Clearly 30 years ahead of the red'n'black "gamer" aesthetic, haha. The ZX-80 will remain one of my favorite machines ever. It's so impossibly bad it boggles the mind. Bad in a good way, that is. I have the deepest respect for Sinclair, and how they managed to build and ship such incredibly cheap machines. They must've had some serious engineering talent to pull that off. Great video, looking forwards to seeing all of them in action. :)

[@MrDuncl]

A friend had the ZX80. I wasn't impressed. As soon as the flicker free ZX81 was announced we both ordered one. He then sold on the ZX80 for £30.

[@thebittenmac]

I remember the Oric Atmos because it was available here in Italy. It was featured in Italian computer magazines but I never saw/tried it for real

[@tudanski]

excellent episode as always. Great production and presentation RMC

[@dickbison]

I don't disagree with the Orci 1's "superb styling" claim, looks very sleek and elegant in my eyes.

[@VK2GPU]

I had the pleasure of getting to play with an Enterprise when I was a kid. At the time I only had access to BBC Micros at school, and a friend of my mum had one of the Enterprise machines. Thanks for covering it, I could never remember what that weirdo micro was I played with occasionally. The joystick on it is a dead give away!

[@GMMilambar]

I wanted an Oric 1, at the time, but my parents insisted on getting me an Amstrad CPC464, as it came with a built in tape deck, and monitor. In hindsight, they made the right choice. But still... Commodore VIC20->CPC464->Commodore Amiga A600HD->Commodore Amiga A1200->PC

[@craigchamberlain]

I was 13 years old when the Enterprise was launched and I remember reading about the specs in various magazines of the time and wanting one. Fortunately, I went in the direction of a BBC B Model 7 with various peripherals and never looked back. Very interesting times in the home computer community though. I was a member of a small (sub 1000 population) town who had a “computer club” and we had all sorts including Sharp MZ-80K, MZ-700/800, Tandy TRS-80, Commodore Pet/64/Electron and Oric Amos. Also, various Sinclair machines and later Amstrad machines. Good times!

[@NorthWay_no]

I want to hear more about the Enterprise. Can't you track down the chip designers and talk to them about it? It gives the impression of a really interesting design, but proper in-depth documentation has never seemed to be easily available. I want one.

[@fordprefect80]

I remember seeing an Oric 1 in a shop display cabinet here in Newcastle Australia back in 83. I would have loved to own it or any other system at the time.

[@Franksey180]

I remember all of these from back in the day, though the ZX81 was the first I got to play with at a friend's house. 23:11 The one that stood out in my memory was the Enterprise 128, saw that in "Fox's music store" at Upper Parliament Street in Nottingham, they sold musical equipment for years but tagged onto the 8-bit computer boom and stocked home computers for a while. I saw that in the shop as a child and was fascinated by it at the time, but never knew anyone that owned one.

[@biglads4tw]

Seem to remember my local John Menzies having loads of Oric-1s back in the day. Later on they stocked the Atmos too but I don't remember ever seeing them for sale anywhere else.

[@herseem]

I loved my Oric-1 and then Atmos. I wrote some good stuff on those, really important programming experience that then became a career, and the Atmos had a really excellent keyboard.

[@ibisum]

Still got those old tapes around? Dig 'em out and send them our way: forums.defence-force.org/

[@EdCourtenay]

I remember seeing a Memotech 512 in the wild in a computer shop in Midsomer Norton in Somerset of all places when I was about 14 and lusted after it - but that was the only time I ever saw one. Still looks great to this day. I think this machine needs an in depth look.

[@RMCRetro]

I know it well, shout out to the Timsbury massive

[@StefanTravis]

The Enterprise. I remember when it came out, reviewed in "Your Computer" magazine - they said it was out of date. They also reviewed the Oric 1 on it's release, noting how the manual was "obviously written by someone who'd never laid eyes on an Oric" and often "misleading or simply wrong". In those years, you could expect a new PC to be released every week, and disappear within 6 months. But you never knew which would hang around - the Dragon 32, the BBC B and the Acorn Electron all took a long time to fade away.

[@StefanTravis]

@@Riskteven It wasn't marketed as a business machine, but to home programming hobbyists, and gamers. Though IIRC it's display, of light green text on a dark green background, does reek of 80s office terminals. So this may be a mis-marketed hybrid.

[@MrDuncl]

Absolutely. Companies with no experience in computers wanted to jump on the Bandwagon. The Oric was financed by British Car Auctions ! Even the big manufacturers were capable of blunders with machines like the Commodore Plus 4 and the Sinclair QL. Back then only Bill Gates understood the importance of Software Compatibility.

[@ibisum]

@@MrDuncl Didn't know that about the British Car Auctions funding Oric.. got more details somewhere?

[@M1PAC]

I went to the release of the enterprise . we were spoilt rotten, and I started to write software for it right away . Then they changed the name .

[@andyhello23]

Amazing how competitive the micro market was in uk, in 1980's. Most of us clearly would never of heard of these machines, you showed here, so fascinating to see them. Nice to see people want to keep them as part of historical record for techs.

[@colinwatt9387]

Odd to hear Francois Lionett and STOS getting mentioned. Takes me back to my ST days and the STOS extensions my friend Billy and I wrote.

[@agelphick]

I've got a boxed and fully working Enterprise 64 that is hidden in my loft! Pretty sure I've got a monitor lead for it too. Must get it down and play with it a bit for that retro feel. You could also get a Spectrum emulator expansion box that let you load your Speccy games too! It was a great machine, released too late. Plus it was First called the ELAN, then the FLAN and finally ENTERPRISE.... Copyright issues I seem to remember. 🙄

[@ibisum]

Wanna swap an Atmos for it?

[@CaptainDangeax]

I had a C64, a friend of mine had an Aquarius, another one an Oric 1, another one anAlice10 and another one a Philips VG5000. The only machine of interrest in this heap was the Oric, the others were just crap and I felt like the president was my buddy with my powerfull C64. A lot of friends, their parents were teachers, were fooled by french politics and had Thomson TO7 or worse, TO9. I remeber the MTX512 and although it was named like my brother's motorbike, the quality of the machine was amazong, until the ST and the Amiga hit the market.

[@axelBr1]

The Enterprise was my dream computer. Walked to the computer shop in my local town so many times to ask if it had come in. But it never did. Ended up with an Amstrad CPC64

[@sgtgrash]

Ah, the Atmos. This was the first micro I bought for myself (together with a Microvitec Cub monitor) so it has a special place in my digital heart.

[@ibisum]

Oric-1 was my first 'real' computer, it replaced a hand-built assembly machine I'd made with my mad-boffin uncle, who was a HAM. Sure did set me on the right path, those chiclet keys and all, LOL ..

[@sgtgrash]

@@ibisum I picked up a 16k Oric-1 for a tenner a few months after I bought the Atmos, simply because I liked the styling. There's a definite knack to getting the best typing speed out of those Oric chiclet keys by deploying a swift, downward stroking motion (ooer missus)🤭

[@djpirtu2]

Oric Atmos 48k is still quite sexy looking machine. Had one in childhood and it's Basic was great for programming, like in MSX which i got too. Later Oric's dram-chips failed in storage, swapped those for new ones and it worked again. Sold maybe ten years ago for 70eur if i remember right. I live in Finland.

[@roleplayingbrian]

Great to see these, I must have been swayed by the unusual in my youth as I waited a year for the Enterprise to be released, before finally giving up and bought an Oric instead, with the terrible keyboard, but I have fond memories as it was the first micro I bought. My parents ran Datapen Microtechnology making lightpens for micro's so I had a dream childhood with C64, Vic 20, BBC, Spectrum, Dragon 32 and my personal favorite Amstrad CPC464, although nothing beats the BBC playing Elite for pure Nostalgia. Ended up with an Atari STFM before the rise of PC clones wiped out this wonderful time for home micros that ran from my mid teens through to my early 20's. Great to see the Enterprise getting a deeper look in recent episodes, and the nostalgia from these is just intoxicating - A big thank you.

[@jovmilos]

Lot of oric atmos models ended up in ex Yugoslavia. it was mostly sold to schools there and was known as nova 64. Besides new logo, everything else was the same. It was fairly expensive so not a lot of people had it. We mostly bought spectrums and C64's smuggled from Germany

[@alancheatley4378]

If I had that Memotech while in school, damn be good to show it off, but for the lack of software though lol.. least I was the only one in my school with a Vectrex.. and it still works!!

[@KevinJones-bt7ib]

I think I remember the enterprise one advertised in a computer gaming magazine. I remember the built in joystick, and thought at the time that was really cool ha ha.

[@bobbobson4069]

Brilliant video! Please make a video on each of those early 1980s machines!!!

[@artisticgoose2609]

The ORIC had a massive design flaw, in that the chip set had a problem with loading off tape. In that sometimes it would fail to load! Now the Oric ATMOS was the upgraded version and the mistake was still in the chips! wow!

[@ibisum]

Was a software problem, that was later fixed ...

[@jester6856]

Great clip...very interesting, would be nice to have seen them boot up and a program loaded. But I really enjoyed this. Great work.😊

[@DbugII]

Regarding the Oric Atmos, I've to point out that the AY output is definitely mono, not stereo. Now, I've a question: You mentioned that on the Atmos it was possible to enter BASIC commands using one single key-press, are you sure of that? How does that work?

[@theeggman4806]

Awesome...I remember most of these..still itching for a Sam Coupe video.. ;)

[@RMCRetro]

Me too!

[@theeggman4806]

@@RMCRetro has the museum got one they would let you drool sorry prod and poke at ? 😅😉

[@billybollockhead5628]

Next time I’m back in Uk, I’ll go hunting in my moms attic and see if I can find my old one to send ya.. I should have loads of games and dev tools too, but not sure how well they’d work after being in attic for decades

[@gavinbruce6656]

Bring on the Sam Coupe. I have one with the original software and some hardware. It has not been used for many years and I would be cautious of switching it on now.

[@gavinsearle4320]

Gavin Bruce, go for it mate, I have my Sam Coupé pride of place in my man cave. Was you a subscriber to the legendary Fred?.

[@turibinosanches4692]

Fantastic, the history of microcomputers made in the United Kingdom is quite rich and even today I still have one of the biggest global successes, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and ZX-81 and their locally manufactured clones..

[@yakacm]

You can tell it's an Oric 1 16k by the fact it has a 48k sticker on the back, lol. The Atmos was the rarer of the 2 but you still saw quite a few of them, I worked in an early computer shop, for younger viewers a shop was like an online store but IRL, IE it was an actually building were you could walk in and 'buy' stuff and take it home with you, completely offline, IKR mind blown. But we did repairs and we got quite a few of both the Oric-1 and the Atmos, if memory serves we did sell some game for the Oric computers, I think they were compatible, it was a long time ago. The shop was City Software in Lime Street Liverpool, if anyone remembers it.

[@neilo3476]

My Oric-1 survived a glass of squash being tipped over it, albeit the keys were a bit stiff afterwards. Years later I bough an Atmos from a mate and do recall swapping some chips around. I still have both and so would love to see something done with those two

[@mapesdhs597]

I have a full Enterprise 128 setup (complete with all peripherals, docs, etc.) and several of each type of Oric, but the Memotech, Atom and ZX80 have proved elusive. Or rather, they have shown up in the past on ebay but someone else was willing to bid more than I was. :D Though from the last MTX auctions I did at least manage to bag some tape games and docs. I'll keep looking. The Enterprise is my favourite though. For me it perfectly encapsulates the essence of that era, the sometimes arbitrary nature of how and why one product succeeded while another failed. The Enterprise was leagues ahead of anything else at the time when its initial launch schedule was defined (especially in terms of maximum supported colours, display resolution and memory expansion), but development woes, legal battles and repeated name changes (most of all the brief disastrous use of "Flan") delayed the launch for so long that by the time it came out it was far too late, tech had moved on. It also didn't help that, in a last ditch effort to cut costs, all the normal rear sockets were removed (leaving just a bare PCB edge), requiring expansion cables to have essentially female PCB plugs, thus shifting the connectivity cost from the main unit to the cabling (great for the base unit cost, but terrible for the consumer who needs a cable). What I find bizarre is how the people involved could have botched the system name issue so badly, what were they thinking? Still, even without that debacle, it's probable the system would nevertheless have come out somewhat late. Here's a long article about it all: www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2013/10/24/elan_flan_enterprise_micro_is_30_years_old/ There is a conspiracy theory concerning the Enterprise about which I'd love to know the truth. Long ago I read that prior to launch Alan Sugar got wind of what was planned for the styling of the Enterprise and thus basically copied it entirely for the CPC464 (one has to admit, the similarites in the colour scheme are striking), along with the ability to expand the RAM to 4MB in the same way. Who knows. 25:02 - Hence if the above is true, really you ought to be thinking of that the other way round. :) Ah what might have been. I saw an Enterprise in a Glasgow store at some point after it launched and I so badly wanted one, but in the event my Dad bought me an Electron; I am glad he did though since that made a lot more sense given the presence of Beebs in schools, for which I wrote all sorts of programs for use by my school. Today I have lots of Electrons, Beebs, Masters and Arcs, but the Enterprise is a special case despite being a technological path that went nowhere. It's all a lesson that the objectively best technological solution may not always prevail, indeed in most cases it seems the opposite is the case (consider the dominant legacy of x86 and Windows). Wrt Hungary, the Enterprise continues to have a solid fanclub there today, eg.: enterpriseforever.com/ Looking at typical prices on ebay atm, I was lucky to bag mine when I did many moons ago, the base unit and a few extras was 165 UKP (ironically less than a 64K version had gone for from the same seller the day before).

[@ibisum]

Get your Orics out!

[@sebastienmorel2950]

The small french red computer you show is an Alice. It is actually a Tandy/Radio-Shack MC-10 built under license by Matra. However, there had been 8-bit computers designed in France: Thomson TO7 and MO5, Hector HRX, Exelvision EXL100, Goupil.

[@CtrlOptDel]

When you’ve just been listening to the video whist doing something else, and when you finally look up at the screen your first thought is “What’s Fred Durst doing talking about British retro computers?”

[@osbornemtthw]

That Oric Atmos reminded me slightly of the Amiga 600. Something about the keyboard layout and the slight wedge shape.

[@zxkim8136]

fantastic episode Neil seeing these machines once again has made my day i wanted all of these back in the day. Memotech knew how to build a computer and the asthetics are perfect, i would like to see an episode dedicated to this micro.......thank you for this production @@@kim@@@

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Kim. Memotech episode coming right up for you sir

[@andymouse]

Your heads are from the same mould.

[@haweater1555]

Due to electrical codes, in the UK every AC outlet in home wiring had a separate power switch, so some manufacturers felt they can leave it off the machine. But the outlet switch, maybe down on the baseboard, was not always convenient to operate.

[@doctorcrankyflaps1724]

Retro Cave Man definitely one the most informative retro channels. I'd like to see more of the Memotech. I'd never heard of it before this video. Cheers for the upload.

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

I was so excited about the Enterprise when it was first announced. The specs read like my dream machine and the pictures made it look really nice. And then nothing, for two years nothing happened and the excitement vaned. There were a few articles about the development and some of the trials of trying to put together a machine from parts sourced from different manufacturers. I remember how they explained the slightly loopy fit between the lower part of the case where the keyboard is and the upper part where the ports and all that are. Apparently there had been some miscommunication between the designer and the factory making the case. I've heard two versions and have no idea if any of them is right, but here goes. According to the first version the designer made a mockup in the machine and sent it to the factory where they then proceeded with making the tools to produce it. Problem was that there were several people involved in making the mockup and they were responsible for different parts, such as one making the keyboard and another creating the upper part, and for some reason they didn't check with each other that the parts actually matched up. So when the factory got the mockup the keyboard part was just slightly wider than the rest. After some modifications they were able to fit them together and proceeded to tool up for production using the loopy fitting mockup as a master. Another version claimed that the keyboard and the back of the machine was produced by two different factories, and that one or both of them managed to screw up the dimensions. Whatever the case I remember reading how the machine didn't look quite the same as they had designed it, but that it had been decided that it was too expensive to scrap the tooling and start over. This was certainly a "what could have been" machine. If it had come out even a year earlier it could have had a good run, and if it had came out two years earlier when it was announced it would most probably been a great success. But it ended up as yet another nice design that never had a chance. Edit: Reading comments I saw that the Enterprise originally was called the Elan, and that made me sit up and take notice. Elan was a name that immediately stimulated some memories as that was the only name I ever remember hearing it called. It also explained why I didn't get that feeling of recognising the name even though I remember reading about it and watching all those juicy pictures. So yea, Elan that's the name...

[@aitchpea6011]

Fascinating. I'd never heard of the Memotech or the Enterprise before. How about a vid on the rise and fall of Research Machines, a UK educational computer company?

[@OtreblaMaslab]

They're still going, they provide IT support for schools 👍

[@aitchpea6011]

@@OtreblaMaslab Wow, didn't know that. I thought they died in the early 90s. Now I really want to see a vid about RM :-)

[@005AGIMA]

Ah the squeak of polystyrene. Never annoying Neil. It's the sound of memories. Loved this video. You always widen my understanding of what came out aside the mainstream machines.