Apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong place - I'm just making a first post to say 'hi' and let you know I've signed-up here My computer owning history, if I'm remembering it correctly: I first had an Oric Atmos (and now have another one, courtesy of Andy/Baz) which was my real passion for the majority of my childhood computing years. I still adore the machine. When I was around 14/15 years old I got my hands on an Atari 800XL and I can't remember why, then moved onto an Atari 130XE. I dunno if the first Atari got broken or if the XE was more powerful (I know far less about the Atari than I do Oric). Move forward a few years and I bought a sparkly new Atari ST 520 - mainly to use its music facilities/MIDI port in conjunction with Steinberg software. I was in a local music group and we did quite a few 'gigs' around Birmingham, UK, using two Atari ST's Memories there.... I acquired an Amiga 500 a bit later but never really had a passion for the machine. Only used it to play a couple of games. Anyway, that's my history of owning computers, only excluding what we assumed to be a broken C16. I say 'assumed' because the problem was that it wouldn't load anything via tape but I recently discovered that the instruction manual had incorrect tape loading instructions so who knows? Maybe the C16 worked after all but returning it to the shop was a blessing in disguise - even though it ruined a childhood Christmas Day - as it meant I got the Oric Atmos as a replacement. I doubt I'd have learned to program using a C16 as much as I did with the Oric. And I've now seen the horror that is a C16 game, in general. I thought Green Beret on the Atari 8-bit was bad but on the C16..... bloody hilarious. So, hello everyone and I hope you are all doing well. Thanks for having me!
GREAT to hear from you, Rob. Just a really quick precis on Rob's retro career: Rob has always been an Oric nut - more so than even self-confessed peanuts like me and Rich. He's more at the Steve "Muso" Marshall and Dave Dick major walnut level. What is more, Rob Cook also steered the successful Oric fanzine Oric User Monthly through months and months of expert editorship. He likes to program (as does his brother) and now lives a lovely life abroad (I know, you can't believe he'd want to leave the grey UK climate, but there you go!) Cheers, Rob - keep enjoying your retro hobby and life here at Atari Owner is very chilled, very friendly and here's to a happy home as it were for years to come. Are there any more titles out there by the Cook brothers, Rob?
Welcome Rob, you have the moniker of a certain well known Atari cracker, Rob C.... Hope you like it here, we are all as mad as march hares and as for Green Beret on the 8 bit, an old mate did that and bemoaned how awkward it was..I'll have to look at the C16 version for a laugh
I read somewhere that a collection of Oric fans is known as a Flap...A flap of Oric fans.. About time we had some flaps on here...
Talking of flaps, is it ignorance or apathy that's confusing the Oric world today? I don't know and I really don't care! ;-)
Thank you for the welcomes To answer your question about software, no - my brother didn't write any other releases following League Soccer. I don't think he particularly wanted to repeat the experience after I hassled and badgered him fifty times a day to get the product finished which resulted in us sending out bugged versions that then had to be replaced at my cost, all purely down to my impatience. A lesson was learned there - allow the programmer time to test and de-bug in his/her own time! Myself, I only knocked out three not-very-great text adventure games. The Haunt (Quilled), Krystal Worlds (Quilled) and Krystal Worlds II (not Quilled), the latter of which could have been better than it is. I was overly proud of its Oric-first (to my knowledge) features such as RAMSAVE and the ability to RUN TO previously visited locations but the game was too difficult with guesswork required and not enough clues. I'm not sure it's solvable without cheats/prior knowledge. But I still have fond memories of writing it for various reasons. I intend to write more software once I've gotten my head around what I want to knock-out, something original and not a clone is the idea and finally catching up my machine code knowledge to where it needs to be. But we're still a long way off that. I can't even go out to purchase a monitor under our lockdown and all the shops that'd sell them are still closed anyway. Only supermarkets and pharmacies are open here :/ Again, thanks for the kind welcomes and I hope to be a regularish poster. Good luck with the forum!
Welcome aboard Rob. I don't think I ever heard of the Oric until I met Andy, you and others from that other defunct Atari site, I'm sure I'm missing out on some good times without one, maybe one day I'll get that gorgeous Atmos...but I hardly have the time for systems I already own, and a wish/bucket list with several classic micros above the Oric. But hey, I was using a ZX81 at the time you had an Oric, and I've no more interest in another Sinclair than an Oric. We all here have Atari 8-bits in common, and that's what matters here, and we can use this site to introduce other's to all our inferior 8-bit loves too.
