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Hebdogiciel

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 12:50 am
by Steve M
Not cheap but if anyone is interested there are a number of copies of Hebdo on Ebay just now.

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 1:01 am
by Symoon
And for those more interested in the content than owning the magazines, you can read most of them here:
http://www.abandonware-magazines.org/af ... .php?mag=7
:)

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 8:34 am
by Dbug
It was in Hebdogiciel that I found the copy program I used the more often back in the days.

I did my own version that had almost no UI at all - replaced by calls to PING/SHOOT/EXPLODE/ZAP to indicated when to insert/swap tapes - so it could fit in some almost never used places in memory, allowing me to copy my games from one tape deck to another without much hassle :)

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 12:18 pm
by Godzil
You crazy pirate! :D

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:08 pm
by Dbug
Godzil wrote:You crazy pirate! :D
Actually it was not really piracy.

I had two tape decks: The one I kept the settings unmodified, and the one I used to "import" software.

The reason is that the various software houses used different "Azimuth" settings for the tapes, so for Loriciels I had to turn the screw to the right, for PSS it was on the left, etc... some of the games only loaded successfully once every three our four attempts.

So what I did, is to make a copy of all my software, loading with one tape drive, and saving on the other (which I also used for my own software), so I did not have to tweak the head screw after that :p

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:18 pm
by Steve M
Interesting stuff. I think Jean Boilaeu transferred all the Hebdo. programs, but I don't see a copier in my files. Do you remember what it was called?
I used to use BDDISK for tape transfers once I had a disk system - even when putting back to tape. It meant I had a backup. Still havent' managed to get it working again so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 3:07 pm
by Dbug
That may have been "copieur-pro" as on this page: http://www.hebdogiciel.fr/oric.htm
The thing is, that one is 2.5 k long, which is way longer than what I used.

If that was that one, then I managed to get it under 512 bytes long by removing the Oric1/Atmos compatibility, replacing all the text prompts by sound effects, removing features such as renaming tapes, etc...

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 7:49 pm
by ibisum
Wow hebdogiciel is awesome! I'd love to have the complete archive in printed form.. What a great resource! Now I really have to learn French.

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 5:59 am
by coco.oric
I've 95% of Hebdogiciel mag, it was fun.
I haven't try their copy software because i was cracking software, and i've never used an hardware copy of tapes.

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 10:31 am
by ibisum
I started my computing interest at the same time I started my music-making interest. The Oric was my first computer; in those days I also had my own little multi-track tape rig set up for audio-hacking, too. Copying tapes was too easy.

Well .. it was pretty hard to get Oric software. You really had to write it and seek hard to find new gems, but they *were* out there. And being in the middle of nowhere (Australia) with very few fellow Oric-users in my region, it meant that the in-frequent meetings of the 8 or so people in the city who had one were spent discussing how to get more software - we knew that there were better European mags and stuff, with some Oric content, but it was near impossible to get.

In the good ol' days, I once put an ad in the local newspaper for Oric users to meet at my parent's house, and I somehow managed to host a very diverse set of people a couple of times, all of us learning to use computers. It was a babble of programming discussions .. when we all discovered that one of guys had just gotten back from the UK with a whole set of tapes, the conversation stopped and we just started copying ..

To have access to Hebdogiciel in this era, with a hot and ready Atmos in front of me, well .. its quite distracting, to be honest, I'd rather be typing-in whatever I can find in these issues, and so on. (But I have too many other languages to learn at the moment, bah!)

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 12:26 pm
by Steve M
There was some mention of an Australian Oric User group in OUM, I think. We didn't know much about it or if they produced a fanzine. I wonder if it was you group that they knew of(?)

Some of the early groups seemed to focus on getting access to tapes, in one form or another. Even here in the UK it was hard finding another Oric user. I think most of us felt isolated to some extent.
I think the thing that kept OUM going was its ability to supply software. Software is the lifeblood of computers so the coders are so valued.

The Hebdo programs tend to be very good and are well worth looking at even if you don't speak French. Most are arcade games where you can get by with some basic knowledge of up,down,left,right and fire etc. Some of them are of a similar standard to programs that were commercially released.

Re: Hebdogiciel

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 12:57 pm
by ibisum
Well, we only met (in Perth) about 4 or 5 times, but I think there was another user group in Melbourne, they may have made a bit more noise on the scene than we did.

I got my Oric, incidentally, because my Dad was an acquaintance of the fellow who handled the import to Australia, whose name I've forgotten completely now, but he was a very friendly bloke I do remember. Was wonderful to go to the warehouse in Melbourne and pick up my Oric, see all the machines lined up and tapes on the shelves .. an experience I'll never get quite the same way, again. Okay, maybe just a little bit when I upgrade the Macbook after a few years, heh heh ..