first time. OMEC, which stands for Orange Music Electronic Company, was formed. Cooper engaged designer Peter Hamilton with the brief to design a computerised amp. The only way to achieve this was with the use of SSI and MSI (small and medium scale logic chips.) At the time there was a stark choice, largely due to cost, between TTL (transistor-transistor logic) which consumed a large amount of power but was readily available and well proven or a new technology from RCA called COS-MOS which was low power consumption but prone to static damage. At the time COS-MOS was considered too risky to use. That technology led to today's CMOS microcontrollers with built in static protection, low power consumption, and millions of transistors on a single chip. Hamilton's design was known as the OMEC Digital Programmable Amplifier and was the world's first digitally programmable amplifier. Real DSP was not readily available until the mid-1990s so the OMEC Digital was effectively a digitally controlled analogue amplifier. A drawback to using TTL became apparent quite quickly as the programmable memory took almost an amp at 5 watts, so any settings were lost as soon as the amplifier was turned off. A backup battery was added in the event of a brief power cut but these would only last approximately one hour. Ultimately, the OMEC Digital Amplifier proved to be innovative but ahead of its time and would require a huge amount of investment to make it financially viable. Whilst the programmable computerised amplifier was perhaps released a decade too soon, Orange continued to produce solid state amplifiers, with the denim clad Jimmy Bean amp being released in 1976. The low cost but high quality integrated circuit chips used in the OMEC allowed for a wealth of innovative signal processing technology to be adapted to other amplifiers and, when coupled with a proven power amp design, led to the launch of a series of solid state amps and matching cabinets throughout 1976 to 1979. By the late 1970s the music world had moved on significantly from the psychedelic hippie movement of the 1960s and the decision was taken to update the design of the range. The typeface was changed to a more modern font, the sleeve was lowered to give a sleeker look, and the basketweave grille was changed to a black material with a different level of sound transparency. As part of this