Most liked posts in thread: Oric Telestrat / Stratos – a review of the "Super" Oric

Yesssssh, one of them, but please have a little patience and you'll see more, ASAP!

My all-time overall favorite machine and absolutely fabulous design (I especially love the standard 128 -not the D- along with 1571, what a gorgeous setup to sit on one's desk), BUT the pure 128 mode with the 80cols and 2MHz still have so few software which makes the new, improved personality of this machine more ill-fated even than the infamous Sinclair QL... Sigh... And as of CP/M on the 128, this is plainly a JOKE, it is totally unusable, DEAD slow and a genuine frustrating experience to anyone who will try to use it...
Seems that the CBM engineers made a completely lame choice, using the 1MHz clock of the 64 circuitry to drive the mighty 4MHz Z80B...
So the poor 128 was destined by its own mother company to be a luxurious 64 at 99.9% of the cases, and nothing more...

 

Kind of hoping it's the MTX as I've always liked the industrial design.

 

Nice Andy. Another tale of too little too late on the home computer front. It'sa sexy beast sure enough with the best colour scheme of any micro, but I think I still prefer the simpler lines of the Atmos.

 

Nice, Andy!
This is the holy grail for the oricians, but even if someone manages to get himself one, I reckon that it's of little or no use... Such a sad thing, this beast was very promising, hardware-wise back then...

 

Hi, Dimitris.

Great to hear from you and hope you are well.

Yes, Oricians talk of this beast like it is something of legendary status!

It looked to have such potential but launched too late in France as the Telestrat (after first threatening to emerge in the UK as the Stratos) - because the more advanced QL, ST and Amiga were all up and running - so it was never going to trouble the market and few were produced. From the sources I've been able to find, ie. Oric fanzines, it looks like less than 10,000, I am led to believe.

If you see one on Feebay, and you don't see many (I'd guess at half a dozen in the past 5 years) you can bet it will go for anywhere between 300-900+ euros depending on condition, accessories, box & packing included etc.

Personally, although it would be nice to have one to "complete the family" it would be a total white elephant - a pretty useless expensive paperweight as I don't think it would get much use around here. However, others might see owning one as an investment as it will only increase in rarity and monetary value.

For me, unless I owned the micro back in the day, I have to try and find a lurve for the thing else it just sits there gathering dust. I was hoping that a Dragon 32 might do it for me and Richie's old CPC464 but I just couldn't find my mojo with these machines and I know it would be the same with one of these Telestrats, so for me... I'll leave it!

Cheers and do get us up to speed with any of your new micro adventures, Mr K.

Have a happy Easter break ahead, folks.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty well and I hope the same for you, Andy, and everyone in here as well...
I understand what you say, it's hard to get some affection for some *unknown* machine that wasn't around back in the days. I more or less believe the same, but in a couples of cases I literally loved "new" retro machines that I had the chance to own decades after their glorious times! But most of the times, I just collect stuff which at the end is not of much interest to me and finally falls into oblivion...
Soon I will post one om my newest retro-adventures with one rather unusual British piece of hardware... No Atari or even 6502-related, though!

Stay tuned!!!

 

Yeah, we have ongoing works on here, Mr K, plasterers in today skimming hallway and ceilings to sort out some horrendous cracks and holes which Bev has decided must be put right, ie. if we're doing some of the house, we might as well now do ALL of the house. Bit fed up of living in a continuous building site with all the dust and mess but there you go. It could be worse. We could have neighbours like Paul's so I thank our lucky stars really.
Aye, sometimes a new machine does indeed give you a buzz and I still recall being loaned an Atari 800XL and HERO cart back in 83-84, before I owned an Atari, and being absolutely blown away by it but that was back then when I was still a very easily influenced teen. These days, I dunno, I sometimes think I've got a bit past learning anything new or getting turned on by a new beast but who knows, maybe if I could get an Enterprise 64 or maybe a Commodore 128, all that would change??!! LOL.
Dimitris, I think we all look forward to hearing more about your unusual bit of Brit kit...I mean what could it be, a Sinclair black watch? A Jupiter Ace? Yep, you've got our curiosity chips engaged now!
Cheers, Mr K and enjoy Easter, fella.

 

Hahahaha, I have this "permanently under construction site" chez moi some 10 years ago, I perfectly understand...
Well, please a little patient, the surprise of my retro-presentation will be pretty interesting!
Happy Easter to you and to all people in this forum, our Greek Orthodox Easter is on the 2nd of May, so we have a little more time to wait...

 

Camputers Lynx?
Sam Coupe?
Jupiter Ace?
Or MTX512?

 

The Commodore 128 is probably the best all round 8-Bit as a package with the ability to run in 128, 64 or CPM. Expandable to 512KB and a RGBI 80 column output. It’s certainly worth tracking down if you can, playing Uridium or Paradroid in 2Mhz mode makes them a lot smoother. Commodore Basic V7 is also miles better than the 64’s V2 which quite frankly, is abysmal. Atari Basic is a lot better than the 64 but it’s not very fast sadly.
So the 128, It’s a really nice machine and I wish Atari had done something similar with their 8-Bits like a Super XL as I think the A8’s are better than the base C64 so you can only imagine what they could have done if they had gone the same route.

As far as the Telestrat goes I still think we should club together and buy one and then each person gets a bit of time with it.
The chances of me affording one are next to zero unless I sell a Kidney

 

Enjoying your comments there, fellas, on the pluses (and 1-2 negatives) when it comes to owning a C128.
Sounds like it could have/should have been THE ultimate 8bit but once more, design shortcomings and appearing too late to market seems like it is another flawed genius of a machine.
Possibly, these mods are designed to give it much more clout and so make the negatives less of an issue?
Cheers, Rich & Mr K.

 

Mine is the Amiga style original 128 and not the 128D and combined with my Pi1541 emulating the 1581 disk drive. It’s a really nice setup but I agree about the CPM implementation, I think it was an afterthought as the Z80 was, I think put in to bootstrap the C128.
I used to own all of those computers, and I did see a Lynx96K on feeBay recently so it will be interesting to see which one it is

 

Yeah, I can see a computer museum buying it for display only. It’s priced too high for the scalpers/breakers so only an Oric owner with VERY deep pockets or a museum would pick this up.
Do you want to go halfies?

 

I'm writing out the pre-shared ownership prenuptials agreement contract now, Richie, for the Telestrat marriage.

You can have full access every other odd weekend in seven and bank holidays in November plus Sheffield floods - am I OK with the old gal the rest of the year??!!

LOL!

As you say, someone will chase this bugger - and maybe all the way to £1000+ - but it won't be me and thee, I fear, pal.

 

How did you guess Andy? That's your Christmas surprise spoiled for this year

 

All we need now is an Atari Falcon on eBay... I think the last one was up for £800, possibly more.

 

Small wonder the average hobbyist never gets to enjoy these machines with arseholes will to pay this sort of money..

And you can bet it gets purchased in put in a box with another 10 of the same...

 

Looks like the bidder failed to pay ( unsurprisingly ) so it’s been relisted. Maybe the buyer found out about the missing HyperBasic cart.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333991543097

 

LOL!
Don't be selling any of your "bits", Rich - 8bits are quite enough without your personal ones being reduced, mate!
Yeah, I do take your point on the C128 and you know where you're coming from as you speak from personal use/ownership and I know you've reported on how neat it is to set-up sprites effortlessly etc via the enhanced BASIC.
There's a beaut modded example going for a song here at the mo on Feebay:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Commodor...176924?hash=item1d06aee59c:g:~aIAAOSwagpgS04T

Sadly at least £100 out of my reach though so I know where you're coming from in being short in the pocket when contemplating a punt at a Telestrat - they're typically £200-500 out of my reach.
Anyway, who knows if we might go "shares" on one in the future - maybe our old pal Steve Muso Marshall can help source an affordable one? Unlikely, but you never know, mate.

 

That custom Kernal looks a lot like the new Mega65 computers Kernal so I’m not sure what’s going on there.
Mine, I have switchable JiffyDOS installed on both the 128 and 64 modes and the spare 32KB ROM socket is currently empty but it would be interesting to see what that Kernal is.

 

There is a Telestrat on eBay right now https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333955146636

 

Well spotted, Richie.
I have had dealings with this guy before and he is genuine and sincere.
I'm sorry to hear he is having to sell his collection due to Covid.
Well, there you go fellas - we're starting the bidding at a little under £900 or around $1200 WITHOUT any leads, accessories or software for this Telestrat!!



Who's got the deep pockets and inclination on here to cut loose??

Good luck, whoever wins it, as it isn't even 100% guaranteed to work...

 

Doesn’t even have the HyperBasic cartridge included so not sure how useable it is.

 

I don’t know if anyone has designed Gerbers for EPROM versions of the cartridges and like you say there is no power supply and there is no way to know if it works and it looks like there’s modifications made as well.

 

Too true, Richie - you'd need a mate who might loan you/sell you a cart or two to get ANYTHING out of it. It does have an ATMOS mode so I guess you could always CLOAD up some old Oric tape titles but it's an immense outlay JUST to have a glorified Atmos on your hands, yeah?