"ORIC'S NEW COMPUTER OUT IN JANUARY"

[robcook]

I enjoyed reading this tonight. 2 per cent! (have to scroll down a bit)

http://archive.org/stream/PersonalCompu ... 5_djvu.txt

Oric Products International are hoping to increase
their current 2 per cent share of the UK market
with a new 64 K micro launched here in January.

Code-named the IQ1 64, the micro was to have
been Known as the 'Suatos' which would have
tied in- nicely with its predecessor, the Atmos.
However, copyright problems over the use of this
name, have left Oric with the difficult task of
finding a new one.

The IQ164 resembles the Atmos in looks but is
a very much meatier machine. Although driven by
the same 6502 processor it has room for two
ROM cartridges, one of which holds the language
{48KI and the other the application (64 K). In
addition there is 64K RAM on board and over 40K
of BASIC, which is much improved and said to
giva much better graphics. The sound has also
been improved.

The keyboard has a function key which, when
held down, allows single-key entry of BASIC
keywords- These are predefined but can be
changed by the user. The 10.164 has built-in
RS232 interface, disk controller, and modem driver
and two joystick ports.

The machine will be supplied with SuperBASIC
and one ROM cartridge and Tansoft have produced
some very innovative software. The price has not
yet been fixed and will depend on what happens to
the dollar and to chip prices.

[iss]

Interesting. I'm curious what was meant with "..much better graphics.."?
I think the ULA is the same for all models. Maybe some new BASIC commands related to graphics.
Here is the picture because of some OCR errors.

[Chema]

Interesting. I'm curious what was meant with "..much better graphics.."?

Probably, as was common at that time, just better BASIC graphical instructions. An 80-column text mode or a monochrome non-attribute hires mode of 320x200 would have been two great simple ideas, but...

[Godzil]

Knowing that the Stratos used the same ULA as the 1 and Atmos, the graphics can't be different.

I wonder is the "Tansoft inovative software" really exist

[ibisum]

I love my Telestrat, I'm pretty chuffed to have one .. although its currently inoperational for some reason. No magic blue smoke, just .. doesn't power up at the moment .. I think its a blown cap somewhere, but I haven't had time to debug it yet.



I'd love to hear from other Telestrat folks though, how theirs are holding up .. did anyone ever get the MIDI port working, for example? I confess to not understanding why it can't be used - if its a hardware thing - or if its just software.

Anyway, will try to repair it one of these days.

EDIT: About the better graphics of the IQ64/Telestrat, you can see a list of enhanced Telestrat commands in the HYPER-BASIC manual - things like ABOX, CHAR, HCOPY, WINDOW, etc.

[iss]

Yes, this demystifies the "better graphics".

.. did anyone ever get the MIDI port working..

Is there any MIDI software available for Oric?

[ibisum]

I didn't find any yet, but that is one of the reasons I invested in the Telestrat, since it has the interface onboard. There was a design for a MIDI interface for the Oric around, we've discussed it before, but it never really proved fruitful with regards to giving developers what we need to support writing some MIDI software. Its one of the things that interests me most about the Oric .. if we can get MIDI working one day, we can use it as a networking protocol.. plus the idea of using the 8 Atmos' I've got in boxes as individual voices in a monster multi-voice symphony is so, so appealing .. one day ..

[iss]

I have very good feeling that this day is close .

[ibisum]

I spent the evening trying to plan out how I'll bring my Telestrat back to life.

[Godzil]

There is unfortunately no possibility to use the pseudo midi port for midi without major changes in the Telestrat electronic

[Chema]

I think Godzil is correct. In the Hardware Programming How-To in Fabrice's site (http://oric.free.fr/programming.html) it reads:

PA3, PA6, CA1, CB2 are connected to the "Midi" port. I prefer to call it "the fake DIN" since there's no way to use it as a midi connector (IMHO). see my proof in CEOmag However, how about using this DIN connector to connect a coffee machine or something else ? You've got 4 IO lines, two of them may be used as interrupt lines, this is really nice ! I will soon try to connect a standard PC/AT keyboard there...

[ibisum]

Interesting .. anyone know the technical details for why its unusable? I'm off to search the CEOMag for info, but in case someone knows the specifics?

[coco.oric]

Hello, there's some informations on ceomag 66 page 11
But it's not really a midi port like godzil said

[ibisum]

From what I understand, its a general-purpose i/o, which requires a lot more code to drive the 31250kbps serial MIDI protocol. A typical MIDI port would have an opto-isolator and a UART at least, on the other side of the port. We don't have that, but we do have bi-directional general i/o? So an adapter could perhaps be made.

[Godzil]

The Major problem for "MIDI" is that it's nearly impossible to do the 31250 baudrate required for MIDI by pure software, this can't cope with large jitter, and it would, if we were able to run code at about the 31KHz nearly all the CPU power will be used to send data, and I don't even speak about receiving it.

The baudrate is slow, but MIDI need "realtime" handling, you can't accept that one note/effect/... to be delay by a few milisecond just because the software take too much time to handle the calculation and send the data.

This was merely incompetance from Oric France, a blatant lie or just some stupid marketing as if I'm correct the Atari ST was release on the same year (1986) did Oric France wanted to say "We also have this feature" I don't know, but that could be a possibility, even if it was a complete lie.