Oric Hardware Programming How-To
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plus Data Sheets
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Oric Schematics
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Oric Motherboard, part 1
and 2
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Microdisc controller, part 1
and 2
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The hardware page !
 An interface to standard
Apple2 disk controllers
Yes, thanks to George Dramcheff from Bulgaria, you have the opportunity
to connect an Apple2 disk controller to your Oric. The interface is easy
to built, just have a look at the
schematics George sent me. If you are desperately looking for a disk
controller, it might be easier to find one for the Apple2 and to build
this interface. However, if you are looking for a genuine Oric disk controller,
of course it's not the same thing. Here are the pros and cons of this interface
:
pros: it allows you to read Apple2 disks, this is great if you have
Apple2 disks and want to have a try at porting some software from the Apple2.
The interface has few components, it might even be simplified/enhanced.
Apple2 disk size is 5"1/4, that's easier to find than 3" disks.
cons: you can't read Oric or PC floppy disks with it (Apple2 disk
controllers use GCR encoding, not MFM), and standard Apple2 drives are
single-sided (a standard 5"1/4 Apple2 disk has a formatted capacity of
140 KB)
 New hardware !
 
Click for full size
Yes, you can buy new Atmos, and cheap disk interfaces you dreamt of
! (they allow to connect standard PC 3"1/2 DD drives) Steve Hopps builds
them, he was a partner in Opelco (read the story in Jon's book), and you
may contact him :
Steve Hopps
56 Manor Park Drive
Finchampstead
Wokingham
Berkshire
RG11 4XE
(United Kingdom)
Tel: 0118 9328251 (add the international code and omit the leading 0
when calling from outside UK)
Steve is very busy, if you want a faster answer, you may better contact
Dave Dick...
(also in its original
ascii format with
figures in
Xfig or
Postscript
format. Here is the
history too)
A very simple schematics
for a serial interface
Just 3 or 4 chips and you are ready for communicating... just download
this.
A simple cable to
catch the vertical retrace signal !
If you have developed games on the oric, you know that moving objects smoothly
on screen is not easy because you don't have any way to synchronize with
the CRT and so your objects are subject to flicker. Well, just build a
two-headed cable from your existing RGB cable, with only one wire to solder
from the SYNC pin of the RGB DIN plug to the TAPE IN pin of a new tape
DIN plug, et voilà ! Then, every vertical retrace pulse will generate
a corresponding interrupt thanks to the VIA (CB1 flag). New demos are going
to show the benefits of this simple wire, and some people are patching
old games to remove the flicker. |
Click for full size