As expected, software has started to trickle through for the Oric, albeit mainly in Basic and almost exclusively for the 48K model. The reasons for the delay in software coming on to the market is obvious when you think about it. To start off with, nobody had any Orics to actually write software with. Once software houses received their machine, there was then the difficulty of understanding how to use it with the early thirty page manual. It takes about a month to really familiarise yourself with a computer before you can safely begin writing software for it.

The first tapes I received for the Oric were from CCS in London. They were two business simulation-type games written in Basic and converted from their original machine, the Spectrum.

Airline is a game that allows you to take the hot seat in running an airline. You have to buy or lease your airplanes, hire pilots and take on maintenance crews. You also have to worry about fuel costs and charter rates. A nice touch is a teleprinter display which types out messages from the tax office of the House of Lords. The aim of the simulation is to raise enough funds for your company, L-Air, to take over British Airways.

There are several charts displayed of charter rates and payloads which look impressive but I found that not enough information was supplied to really make use of them.

Dallas is a clever simulation which allows you to take the role of 'Cliff Parnes', running an oil company which is competing with the 'Euing' oil company. You have to make the decisions involved in running the company with the aim of taking over Euing Oil.

A colour map is displayed and you have various options of prospecting using seismic surveys, drilling test wells, bidding for potential sites and setting up production facilities.

Various symbols are shown on the map which represent oil rigs, concessions, pipelines and production facilities.

To complicate matters you will be up against blow-outs, tornadoes and competition by the Euings. You will have to borrow money to buy equipment and have to cope with sudden tax demands. I found this game a real challenge and even my own experience in the oil business did not stop me being thrashed time after time.

Of the two programs, Dallas was probably the better but, to be fair, I should say that I only had preliminary versions of each.

Way, London SE3 7TL and also from most Oric stockists as Oric themselves distribute these games.

New from Tansoft is Zodiac, an enormous adventure game written almost entirely in Basic, although the save game facility is in machine code. The program is just over 36K in size and takes 29 minutes (!) to load at slow speed. It is a text only adventure which also uses sound and music.

The aim of the adventure is to find the twelve signs of the Zodiac which are hidden in various strange locations in a small town. Once these have been found, you use them to find treasure. Although the first few signs are fairly easy to discover you soon run into difficulties. There is a ram, which I'm sure represents Aries, which absolutely refuses to let you take it with you. There is also a radio that won't shut up. Zodiac is a parallel adventure in that you can be performing several tasks at once and aren't confined to doing things in a fixed order.

A nice touch is the ability to string commands together as one line, such as "GO SOUTH AND OPEN DOOR THEN LOOK AROUND". Two minor criticisms are that, every time you go into a different location you get a little tune playing; this can become rather irritating after a little while. The other criticism is that because the program is written in Basic it sometimes is a little slow. The program is full of witticisms and silly messages; for instance, if you get killed, it says "Oh dear, I've come over all dead!".

Tansoft, 3 Club Mews, Ely, Cambs and is also distributed by Oric. Please note that this is not the same as the Zodiac sold by Micro-Marketing.

Finally, we have received from Durell Software their Lunar/Asteroids tape. Both of these are written in Basic and are really aimed at the younger Oric Owner. Lunar Lander shows the landscape of the moon with your lunar module in the middle. The module takes off from the moon; you then have to guide it down, controlling the thrust of your rockets. It is very difficult to land and quite often you will run out of fuel.

Asteroids is a very much cut-down version of the arcade game. Your spaceship is in the middle of the screen with hordes of asteroids advancing towards you. You can control the left and right movements of your ship to avoid them.

Each program is supplied in two forms. A 'runable' version and an expanded version with detailed REMark statements to allow you to see how the program was written.

Higher Combe, Combe Florey, Taunton, Somerset.