Oric Joystick interfaces

Joystick Interfaces for the Oric.

The Oric was released just about when joysticks started to become really popular. Having not included a joystick interface in the original hardware, third party companies had to resort to creating ones that would fit in either the printer port or the expansion port. If you use the printer port you'll find clashes with sound, because the the sound chip is linked to the 6522 VIA. If you use the expansion port then it pretty much rules out using a disk drive.

Oric eventually brought out their own interface and joystick. The joystick was a bit poor not having a trigger switch. They are quite rare now and worth hanging on to if you managed to get hold of one. Get a proper one for playing games though :-)

I would recommend using the Oric cursor keys which had a great layout. Wiggling a joystick can be fun ! So, for those that would like to try games like, Attack of the Cybermen, Dambusters, Loki, Zebbie, Damsel in Distress, Playground 21, Gubbie, Roland Garros and Two-Gun Turtle, (which I achieved the hi-score on using a joystick), then here's some info to get your interface working.

Rare Orics

Are there any rare Orics ? Well yes. The Oric-1 was released in 16K and 48K forms, but most people got the 48K model and so the 16K model is something of a rarity.
ORIC-1 16K MODEL Some rumours have emerged about the 16K model and I've heard stories about different ULAs and tales about the number of RAM chips. Some aren't sure if they actually existed. Well, they did! I have one and mine works with any of the ULAs from any 48K Oric so I'm pretty sure there is no ULA difference.
See Oric-1 page
I think a number of Oric-1s, including the 16K model, were traded in for upgrading to Atmoses.
Click here for a picture of a 16k motherboard - 67 Kb

ALTERNATIVE ATMOSES ? 16K Atmoses were supposed to have been released, but I've never heard of anyone having one and I've never seen one. Similarly 32K Orics were in the pipeline, but as far as I know there were none made. If you know better, get in touch !

EARLY TWIN ROMS Other rare models are the earliest Orics. The early ones had two EPROMs holding the ROM information, requiring IC11, (IC10 being one of the EPROMS). Most Orics have no IC10 and IC11 as a larger EPROM was fitted containing all the information.
The circuit boards of early Orics are semi-transparent and were made in Japan. Mine has a sticker on the solder side to this effect !
Many of the old Oric-1s were upgraded to Atmoses, so these early model are becoming rare.

LARGE Oric-1 motherboard PICTURE - 342 Kb
I was going to shrink it, but it looks better this size. Just be patient if you have dial-up, like me!!!

OTHER ORICS
The French version of the Atmos is slightly different to the British one. It has an extra pin connection on the RGB socket. I've seen them have AZERTY keyboards but I'm not sure if they were made like that. It's not really rare though. The Fench had to contend with English ROM with English keywords.
I've recently come across German keyboards for the Atmos. Unfortunately they were just the keyboard so I don't know if there was a German ROM in the computer, but have to assume there was.
Any foreign versions like this must be rare.
Click here to view the German Atmos keyboard

Oric TELESTRAT I guess you could include the Telestrat here. Early English models are very rare. The Telestrat/ Stratos/ IQ 64 never sold too well due to Oric's downfall in the UK. There were, allegedly, a few Stratos machines produced before the French took over the project and refined tweaked the design to become the Telestrat. I intend to add a page about them sometime.
Here's a picture of the Telestrat ! Oric Telestrat

The last mention is for a Pravetz - an Oric clone. They dont' appear to be a model that was actually manufactured by Oric so I'm not sure if they count (?)