Last modified on 1 September 2014, at 04:01

Orion

Revision as of 04:01, 1 September 2014 by Ygdrazil (Talk | contribs)

CTM644 Monitor with ORION cathode ray tube

Orion is one the LK-selectable Brand Names contained in the CPC BIOS, allowing to display the boot message Orion 64K Microcomputer on power up. Amstrad apparently planned a partnership with a company with that name.

As far as known, the partnership didn't worked in that direction - there have been no CPCs sold using the Orion brand. However, it worked the opposite way around: The CTM640/CTM644 and GT64/GT65 monitors contain cathode ray tubes from Orion.

Orion (Japan)

ORION Electric Co,. Ltd. is japanese company, founded 1958 by Shigemasa Otake.

Orion and ISP KG

The ISP KG acts eurorean retailer for japanese ORION products (from 1975 until today), mentioned here because the CPC BIOS also includes Isp as selectable brand name, which may refer to ISP KG.

Orion Electric (Japan) and Orion Electronics (Hungary)

Confusingly, there are two ORIONs, both using nearly identical logos, and both spanning a nearly identical range of products. For example, both are selling television sets with the ORION brand name. Orion (Hungary), founded in 1913, has confirmed that they are not related with each other.

The Cliff Lawson Interview isn't perfectly clear which company they were referring to: It only says "far east", but not how far. Considering that the CPC and GX4000 were manufactured in Korea and Japan, it's quite obvious that "far east" meant east Asia to Amstrad; Hungary is central Europe, and it couldn't even really be called east Europe.