HACKING

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After the Media Lab Workshop(XML Workshop:)) the device I got really stuck with me. Because I didn't know what it was and thought it was just a keyboard. I picked out an ORIC-1 and connected it to power with a random adapter I found in the media lab. I heard sounds coming from it so I wanted to connect it to a monitor and play around.

ORIC-1 :->

So what happened is that first I did a verrrrryyy short research on ORIC-1. I found the manual on archive.org. Here it is if you're curious. This manual really did a number on me... I was so fascinated by the small drawings of ORIC. I was like, okay little guy... I guess I have to make you work.

Process

The Cable(ORIC to Monitor)

I already had the power cable so all I needed(so innocent) was the computer to monitor cable. I found a scart cable(21 pins, male to male) and thought this is perfect, it fits the monitor. Found another cable, a DIN(5 pins) and it fits the computer! Wat leuk! I researched online of course and after a load of wrong information I stumbled upon a forum that talked about this exact situation, amongst those who refuse to buy a cable online or from an ATARI-HDMI cable distributor. There is nothing wrong with ordering cables online. Here's a link for the right cable I needed. But sometimes the repair is urgent and we are losing the patient. For some reason when I am repairing something there is an urgency I can't really explain, no one is actually dying. But I'm dying to know if this computer could work. Anyway, so I decided to chop the two cables and connect them following the instructions from this old forum entry. Which I can't find anymore...(it may be this) This is mega unfortunate, BUT no worries, because I already saved the most important image from it on my computer :) This is why we must save every file and never delete anything :) This is a version of the one I saw first but this is a better/updated version. Because I tried out the really basic version of this, and noted it down. you can see here at the bottom it says
  • 15 -> 1
  • 11 -> 2
  • 7 -> 3
  • 20 -> 4
  • 13,9,5,17 -> 5
The left side is the numbers from the SCART and right ones are the numbers of the DIN pins, you can also see above I made a small diagraph of both. I found out during this process that RGB pins on the SCART are: red input, red ground, blue input, blue ground, green input and green ground. I wanted to write all of it down because this configuration DID NOT work for the Phillips monitor I had. The model of this monitor is CM8833 and I also added the manual and a repair manual(made by some guy on-line) here: Another thing I was confused about the SCART was the aluminium casing around the cables. So this looks like just a cover for the whole cable bunch BUT it is actually the shell casings GROUND cable. You can see the other scart schemas here. What was really interesting was the fact that none of the schemas I found online worked for this monitor. Here are some pictures before I figured it out. At this point I was desperate and decided to make a breadboard with all 21 cables from the scart and 5 from the DIN... This was suggested by Fred and I think it was brilliant however it was such a miserable mission. I cut and prepared 26 cables and soldered them nice and neat. At the end, this situation was impossible to keep track of. I failed to log all my try outs and successes because the breadboard was impossible to figure out.

I believe that every ORIC to monitor cable needs some re-config according to the monitors needs. The monitor I had was a very old one that was unused for ages. I checked every other monitor and either none had scart or the rest didn't communicate with the computer at all. At this point I decided to ask strangers for help as one does. the most popular answer was there is a horizontal frequency mismatch and it needs to be adjusted. I don't want to be that person but I obviously checked for this on the monitors already existing settings. Some years ago I used some oscilloscopes for a project and I knew that there would be some adjustment options on the screen. I tried all of them of course. Alas, no luck. I researched online what else could be the problem and found something fascinating. Apparently the horizontal slide error could be because of the Earth's rotational em field. This is outright insane. Here is an example from a redditor Another really interesting possibility was electricity in the walls. It is also possible that if there is a lot of current around the monitor it can lead to this sliding effect.

None of these were fixing my problem. I couldn't even get the white regular screen of oric (I researched online to see how it looks). I told Fred that it only kinda works if I touch the monitor. He said if it is due to me touching, that must be an error of ground cables connection. And he was absolutely right. Really recommend asking your friends about your electrical problems! I decided to learn which are the pins that are labeled ground on the SCART. I wrote them down and tried to touch them to the ground connection I already had from the previous configuration.

This is the closest thing I could find to what I needed because it also showed 19 as a connection point. Here is the last version I connected everything with that actually works.
    ?

At the end my cable worked! But the monitor still had it's issues. So I left it there :)

All the links/imgs I saved during my ORIC/SCART/PhillipsCM8833/DIN Journey

Oric 1
"Wobble" in PC CRT image : r/crtgaming
Oric 1 and Atmos RGB Scart Powered Video Cable
schema-scart.jpg (JPEG Image, 600 × 451 pixels)
doc-tec-2000.jpg (JPEG Image, 2000 × 970 pixels) — Scaled (47%)
oric broken tv-out and rgb output
scart.gif (GIF Image, 263 × 302 pixels)
Leads Direct | Din & Midi Wiring
Reddit - https://preview.redd.it/homemade-scart-adapter-for-c64-and-vic-20-v0-2fit188ppry11.jpg?width=1181&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=500504c1ab21c1d00ac344d3713bd907e41f7925
C64scart.gif (GIF Image, 1966 × 1042 pixels) — Scaled (48%)
Proper C64 S-Video | CommodoreServer.com
[Help] Grounding RBG Lines on DIY SCART : r/crtgaming
Ground in scart cables - Page 1
Composite monitor (5-pin DIN 41524) - MSX Wiki
Scart cable for the HAS | Arcade-Projects Forums
Scart Pinout Diagram » Diagram Board
Cable-Peritel-800xl-Scart-PAL-NTSC.jpg (JPEG Image, 613 × 398 pixels)
Philips8802-8833_Manual.pdf
CM8833 - Philips CM8833.pdf
Shiva - Games to play on your Oric : Shiva Publishing : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
TinyBasic (ZX Spectrum) by Matthew Begg by BASIC 10Liner
BASIC - Wikipedia