Oric Atmos

The Oric Atmos was a British 8-bit computer that superceded the Oric 1.

Like it's predecessor, it gained some level of popularity in Europe during the early to mid eighties.

Despite being a decent machine it never managed to fully compete against the ZX Spectrum, Commodore Vic 20, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Amstrad CPC 464, Acorn Electron or the BBC Micro.

So let's have a look at another lesser known 8-bit computer that just didn't quite manage to make it in the UK during the 8-bit era...

Just like the Oric 1, the Atmos was manufactured as a direct competitor to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

It was blessed with a better keyboard than the Oric 1 (which also had a nice keyboard) and the pesky problems in the ROM which had niggled the previous Oric machine, had finally been ironed out.

This was a major plus point over the Oric 1.

It was by far less a cool looking unit though, and the black and orange combo keyboard just didn't look good at all. It looked a little cheap and tacky to be honest, and a more subtle colour scheme would have helped a lot.

The problems loading programs from cassette were still present though, which was a real down side to the machine. The Atmos really should have had this little quirk nailed on the head, especially as it wanted to compete with other 8-bit machines of a similar stature.

There was nothing more annoying than not being able to load your favourite game until you tried it four times.

As was becoming the norm, the machine came in both a 16K and 48K version, although the 16k version was not upgradeable, which really was inforgiveable. By 1984 16K was no longer considered enough memory.

It goes without saying that not many of the 16K models were sold. This small amount of memory could not support many computer games by 1984 and by this time your average punter demanded more memory. 16K? Pah!

If you fancied trying your hand at programming, a good version of BASIC was installed on the machine. Tangerine basic was actually created by Microsoft and was an upgrade to the Basic used on the Oric 1.

The peripherals that had been promised for it's predecessor (including a Modem, 3.5" floppy disk drive and printer) were also released for the Atmos late in 1984 - but again this was a problem as other machines such as the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro and Commodore 64 were already blessed with a host of peripherals.

The machine, like it's predecessor, became popular over the channel in France.

The French models incorporated a scart power supply which tidied up the Oric cable problem that I am sure Oric users will remember (a cable for the machine, one for the cassette deck, one for the TV and one for any other peripherals that may be attached!). Phew.

The Oric Atmos was a decent machine that never really managed to take off in the UK.

It lived through 1984 and 1985 before fading into obscurity as it lost out to the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum. BBC Micro and the Amstrad CPC machines. By 1986 it had effectively vanished from the high street and the ZX Spectrum and C64 ruled the home computing roost (with the Amstrad lagging just a little behind).

As the whole retro gaming scene is booming, new titles are now being developed for the Oric Atmos, which is great news.

Emulation is also in full swing and classic and new titles (check out the Elite type game in the video below) can be enjoyed by enthusiasts (check out www.oric.org and www.defence-force.org).

Perphaps we can all finally see what the machine is capable of after all these years...

Defence Force are making modern games for the Oric machines.

They have even developed some 4KB (Yep that's a paltry 4K of RAM folks!) games to really push the capabilities of the machines.

A 'Light Cycles' game (made famous by the movie TRON) has been created called Cyclotron. Sparse on sound effects but high on gameplay - a superb piece of programming within the limits of 4K of RAM.

A 4KB version of the classic arcade game Kong was created for the minigames competition and is also available from the Defence Force website.

These games are a marvel in technical achievement and prove just what can be accomplished on a retro computer via the use of assembler.

Awesome stuff...