(Renamed from Pugo-Oric 2026)
This project implements an Oric computer emulator with graphics, sound, tape and disk support. All code is written from scratch.
It is my absolutely slowest project, just made out of love to programming and to my first computer.
This is the result of a very long and low intensive hobby project I have worked on since 2009, which currently is 17 years.
The purpose was to develop an emulator of the first computer I ever got, as a Christmas gift some 40 years ago. The computer was an Oric 1, and it was fantastic back then!
There already is a brilliant emulator of Oric: Oricutron. The purpose of my emulator is not to compete, but to learn more about how emulators work and to close the circle by learning more about the computer I got as a kid.
Auric has been developed and tested on Linux and MacOS. It should be possible to build it on Windows as well, but I have not tried that.
All building instructions are located in the doc directory.
- To build with vcpkg, see doc/BUILD_VCPKG.md.
- To build with host libraries, see doc/BUILD_HOST.md.
This repository includes CMake presets for common build setups.
Example for Windows (Visual Studio 2022 + vcpkg):
set VCPKG_ROOT=C:\path\to\vcpkg
cmake --preset windows-vs2022
cmake --build --preset windows-vs2022-release -j 8
For detailed Windows notes, see Windows.md.
This section describes how to run the emulator.
The program currently looks for ROM files from the ROMS directory in the project
root. It expects the following ROM files to exist.
| ROM file name | Description |
|---|---|
basic10.rom |
Oric 1 ROM (for Oric 1 mode) |
basic11b.rom |
Oric Atmos ROM (for Atmos mode) |
microdis.rom |
For Microdisc disc drive emulation |
I plan to add a configuration file options to specify ROM locations and ROM file names.
$ ./build/auric
Run the emulator with flag -? (or --help) to see available parameters.
$ ./build/auric -?
Usage: auric [options]
Allowed options:
-? [ --help ] produce help message
-1 [ --oric1 ] use Oric 1 mode (default: Atmos mode)
-w [ --width ] arg window width in pixels
-h [ --height ] arg window height in pixels
-t [ --tape ] arg tape image file to use
--tape-normal disable tape turbo mode
-d [ --disk1 ] arg disk image file to use for drive 1
--disk2 arg disk image file to use for drive 2
--disk3 arg disk image file to use for drive 3
--disk4 arg disk image file to use for drive 4
-m [ --monitor ] start with GUI debugger open
-v [ --verbose ] verbose output
The in-emulator main menu can be toggled with F1. It allows you to change
the emulator settings, load tape and disk images, and more.
The following control keys can alter the emulator behavior.
F1: Toggle main menuF2: Save snapshot (to RAM)F3: Load snapshot (from RAM)CTRL-W: Toggle warp mode (go as fast as possible, speed up tape loading, etc.)CTRL-R: Soft reset the emulator (NMI)CTRL-B: Break to debugger (in console).
To specify which tape TAP file to use, use the --tape or -t command line
argument:
$ ./build/auric --tape taps/hunchbk.tap
To load a tape program from the emulator you can try the following.
CLOAD"
To speed up the loading time it is possible to toggle warp mode with
F12.
Auric supports loading from Microdisk images.
To specify which tape TAP file to use, use the --disk or -d command line
argument:
$ ./build/auric --disk disk/oricpetscii.dsk
Auric supports saving to Microdisk images.
If a Microdisk image is loaded, and data is written to the disk, then the changes will be saved to the image file automatically. There is currently no write protection mechanism.
Since the emulator does not have any GUI with interaction at this point the best way is to simply close the window.
It is also possible to press ctrl-c in the terminal window where the
emulator was started. On the first press of ctrl-c the emulator will
enter the monitor mode. See the monitor section below for more
information about the monitor. To exit for real, press ctrl-c a second
time.
You can at any time enter a monitor mode by pressing ctrl-c in
the terminal or by pressing ctrl-b inside the emulator.
The monitor is shown as a panel in the emulation window. It allows you to inspect the state of the emulated computer, set breakpoints, and more.
The monitor has commands like the following.
Available monitor commands:
ay : print AY-3-8912 sound chip info
bs <address> : set breakpoint for address
d : disassemble from last address or PC
d <address> <n> : disassemble from address and n bytes ahead (example: d c000 10)
debug : show debug output at run time
g : go (continue)
g <address> : go to address and run (example: g 1f00)
h : help (showing this text)
i : print machine info
m <address> <n> : dump memory from address and n bytes ahead (example: m 1f00 20)
pc <address> : set program counter to address
quiet : prevent debug output at run time
q : quit
s [n] : step one or possible n steps
sr, softreset : soft reset oric
v : print VIA (6522) info
As I work as a developer this has been a project I have gone back to for shorter stints when normal work for some reason have had less amount of coding. That means that this project has been extremely slow. But that has always been a wonderful thing! I have never felt any pressure to work on it and instead hacked on it by pure love.
The first thing I developed was naturally the MOS 6502 emulation. That took several years of now-and-then coding. Then after some delay the MOS 6522 VIA (IO) chip work started and took some more years. After that I added graphics support, keyboard emulation, tape loading and lastly sound.
The timeline is something like:
- 2009: MOS 6502 CPU
- 2014: MOS 6522 VIA
- 2016: Graphics
- 2017: Key input
- 2020: Tape loading
- 2023: AY3-8912 sound
- 2024: Cycle bug fixing, new monitor, blink mode, snapshots
- 2025: Status bar, new tape loading, zoom
- 2026: Microdisk loading and saving, moved to SDL3, in emulation GUI, multi drive support, free window resizing, memory map view Windows 10/11 support (thanks Dagfinn Dybvig!), Tape turbo loading, Tape autostart, in emulation window debugger.
Since this is a pet project I work on it only when I like to. Up to this point noone has wanted to contribute, but at this stage it could be fun to cooperate!
The project exists on GitHub: https://github.com/pugo/Auric
All code is licensed with GPL v3.
Sweden, Linghem 2026, Anders Piniesjö