Oric Atmos

 Home > Browse Our Collection > Computers > Oric > Oric Atmos
 

The Oric Atmos was a British designed and built machine and was the successor to the Oric 1.

Released in 1984, the Oric Atmos was conceived by Oric International, after being taken over by Eden Spring, who had injected 4 million pounds into the company. The major improvements over the Oric 1 were adding a true keyboard and smart new case, also installing an updated V1.1 ROM to the motherboard of the Oric, which had some unfortunate bugs in its code. Otherwise the machine is identical to the 48K version of the Oric 1.

Soon after the Atmos was released, the modem, printer and 3-inch floppy disk drive originally promised for the Oric-1 were announced and released by the end of 1984.

At the rear, the machine has an RF socket out, an audio I/O socket, an RGB out, printer and disk drive ports, and the power socket.

Unfortunately the machine was no more reliable, with a voltage regulator that got extremely hot, and despite getting a new heat sink, it was not enough to stop it from failing. Modern use of the machine recommends a larger heat sink to be fitted underneath the motherboard. It also failed to turn around the fortunes of the brand, with stiff competition from Sinclair and Commodore, plus the newcomer Amstrad, the lack of software, especially after Tansofts liquidation meant it had little to compete in the market place.

RAM problems are common, but thankfully the chips used are still in fair supply, and anyone skilled with a soldering iron will be often successful in repairing them. Other problems were a very unreliable tape loading system.

Despite the hardware difficulties, the machine did sell reasonably well initially, especially in the Netherlands, but it was not enough to stop the parent company of Oric international Eden Spring being sold to the French Company Eureka. The company would develop, but not release the Oric Stratos, which only a few prototype machines remain. This development would eventually lead to the Oric Telestrat, which was aimed at communication users, only a few thousand were sold, and today it is another extremely rare machine.

Due to a good basic it is still popular with homebrew developers today, which still see new titles appearing regularly.

Our Oric Atmos is on display.

Manufacturer: Oric International
Date: 1st February 1984



Comment on This Page

Magazines RELATED to Oric Atmos in our Library

Item Manufacturer Date
Time-Sharing News July 1968 to June 1969 Time-Sharing News Jul 1968
Time-Sharing News Volume 2 - 1969 Time-Sharing News Jan 1969
Personal Computer World - November 1982 Nov 1982
Your Computer - February 1983 Feb 1983
Personal Computer World - April 1983 Apr 1983
Your Computer - June 1983 Jun 1983
Your Computer - September 1983 Sep 1983
Practical Computing - September 1983 Sep 1983
Your Computer - October 1983 Oct 1983
Special Supplement Practical Computing - October 1983 Oct 1983
Your Computer - November 1983 Nov 1983
Your Computer - December 1983 Dec 1983
Personal Computer World - March 1984 Mar 1984
Personal Computer World - May 1984 May 1984
Personal Computer World - June 1984 Jun 1984
Practical Computing - July 1984 Jul 1984
Personal Computer World - August 1984 Aug 1984
Personal Computer World - April 1990 1 Apr 1990
Acorn User - September 1991 10 Jun 2009

Other Systems Related To Oric Atmos:

Item Manufacturer Date
Oric 1 16k Oric International 1st January 1983
Oric 1 16k Oric International 1st January 1983

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH527. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

 

Oric Atmos

  Book Archive   [10]
  Games Archive   [40]
  Software Archive   [20]
  Type-in Listings   [1]
  Peripherals   [2]

Click on the Image(s) For Detail


Articles

A Historical Analysis of Implementing IS at J.Lyons

Help support the museum by buying from the museum shop

View all items

Founding Sponsors
redgate Google ARM Real VNC Microsoft Research
Heritage Lottery Funded
Heritage Lottery Fund
Accredited Museum