Oric Atmos

[acsi]

I now need to check of one of my always wanted but never had machines.

Last year I was lucky enough to obtain a non working Oric 1 and proceeded to spend mega amounts of money and time in repairing it. But it was all worthwhile as I learnt allot about how it all works.

Well today I received a package from France containing an untested Oric Atmos. I have always liked the look of the Atmos but have never seen one up close and I wasn't disappointed. This is one sexy machine. Black, Red and White. Nicely slanted case just at the right angle for typing on it's full travel style keyboard.

Well she needs a bit of a cleanup but after giving her a test she is in full working order. And you've just got to love the built in RGB output.

The unit came with 8 tapes, 6 original and 2 audio cassette's containing all that dreaded pirated software .

[kevman3d]

I remember seeing one of those back in the 80's in a small store up at the top of Queen Street in Auckland. It was the same day I went in and bought my DK'Tronics keyboard for my Speccy... (I got a sudden flashback to my early childhood)

I agree - its very cool in black and red, and I recall I wanted one. Do post up some images some time and let us all drool over it - be great to see one actually in action.

[acsi]

Finally got hold of the camera (and the kids haven't flattened it)

Here it is in all its blazing (still to be cleaned up) glory.



And here are some screen shots of defence force. (the game has options for silent or normal game. unfortunately it does not allow volume adjustment as the sound is cool but extremely loud on the internal speaker)

[tezza]

Cools Pics, thank for posting.

[xjas]

Odd arrangement of arrow keys... Those must have looked sensible to the designer but no one ever thought about how intuitive they'd be to use! Are they really awkward or do you get used to it?

[kevman3d]

Awesome! Thanks for the pics...

[acsi]

Odd arrangement of arrow keys... Those must have looked sensible to the designer but no one ever thought about how intuitive they'd be to use! Are they really awkward or do you get used to it?

Surprisingly most programs don't use them. The most common keys i've found so far are A,Z,<,>.

Looking at a ZX keyboard they use the same layout of L,D,U,R but using the 5,6,7,8 keys.

[kevman3d]

In a way, that set up could be handy for games - the space bar is in the middle, and if was the fire button, the cursors + spacebar in a line like that could be convenient. But then, I wasn't a big fan of any games on the speccy that forced me to use the 5,6,7,8

[acsi]

Curious,

I've had to replace the laptop I use to play WAV's and it seems that with the new one once the WAV is finished I need to unplug the cable from the headphone jack otherwise the Oric (both the Oric1 and Atmos) sit on the loading screen.

As soon as you unplug the EAR cable it seems to trigger the finish of the load? Only took me about an hour to find this out after trying different volume levels etc.

Strange.