You can usefully delude your Oric 1 or Atmos by exploiting the strange effect that pressing ESC and DEL together has. The program above overlays the Text screen by poking 48000,156. It then overcomes the restriction of not being able to draw on this psuedo-window when in Text mode by convincing the Oric that it is actually in Hires mode with a POKE 704,3.
If you have just switched on, poking location 48000 with 156 reveals the Hires screen filled with vertical lines. You can now move your cursor around the screen and it disappears under the overlay and re-emerges. Try typing some text when the cursor is out of sight, then type Return a few times to bring back the cursor. Next, type POKE 48000,32 and you will find your text screen with all you previously typed.
The following listing is a demonstration. Remember that the Oric thinks it is in Hires, so TEXT or POKE 704,2:POKE 48000,32 returns things to normal.
Do not try to use a y-axis value greater than 135 and remember which mode you have poked 704 with as PRINT AT etc will not work in Hires (i.e. 704 contains 3). Finally when in Text, POKE 704,1 provides a safeguard against selecting Hires if you wish to preserve this area of memory.
10 REM : HIRES OVERLAY
20 POKE 48000,156 : REM PUT UP OVERLAY
30 POKE 704,3 : REM SET STATUS AS HIRES
40 CURSET 0,0,0
50 FILL 135,40,64 : REM CLEAR SCREEN
60 CURSET 100,60,1
70 FOR N=1 TO 50 STEP 5
80 CIRCLE N,1 : REM JUST A DEMO
90 NEXT N
100 CURSET 6,0,0
110 FILL 135,1,5 : REM INK CHANGE
120 END
19th January 1985
