--- title: TANGERINE MICROTAN 65 categories: - Computers types: - Home Computer origins: - United Kingdom years: - '1979' cpus: - '6502' params: name: MICROTAN 65 image: /media/museum/photos/tangerine_microtan-65_1.jpg company: /companies/tangerine company_name: TANGERINE specs: - label: NAME value: MICROTAN 65 - label: MANUFACTURER value: Tangerine - label: TYPE value: Home Computer - label: ORIGIN value: United Kingdom - label: YEAR value: '1979' - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE value: Machine-code (through TANBUG) - label: KEYBOARD value: Hewadecimal keyboard in basic version - label: CPU value: '6502' - label: SPEED value: 0.75 MHz - label: RAM value: 1 kb (up to 48k) - label: ROM value: 1 kb (TANBUG v1), upgradable to 14kb - label: TEXT MODES value: 32 x 16 - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: 64 x 64 with graphic characters - label: COLORS value: Monochrome - label: I/O PORTS value: Bus, Tape, Monitor - label: PRICE value: From $82 (single board version) tabs: - photos - software - emulators - links photos: - title: COMPLETE SYSTEM IN RACK subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/tangerine_microtan_systemrack_1.jpg screenshots: - title: AIR ATTACK subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_air-attack_ss.gif - title: BREAKOUT subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_breakout_ss.gif - title: FACE INVADERS subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_face-invaders_ss.gif - title: FULL-SCREEN GRAPHIC PATTERN subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_graphic-pattern_ss.gif - title: SHOOT DOWN subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_shoutdown_ss.gif - title: SLOT MACHINE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_slot-machine_ss.gif - title: GOBBLER subtitle: '' text: Excellent adaptation image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_gobbler_ss.gif - title: HELL'S BELLS subtitle: '' text: Excellent clone of "Hunchback" ! image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_hells-bells_ss.gif - title: MOON CRESTA subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_mooncresta_ss.gif - title: MOON RESCUE subtitle: Title screen text: '' image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_moon-rescue-1_ss.gif - title: MOON RESCUE subtitle: '' text: Excellent and very fast. image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_moon-rescue-2_ss.gif - title: ASTRO FIGHTER subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/tangerine_microtan-65_astro-fighter_ss.gif emulators: - title: Tangerine Microtan 65 Emulator url: http://www.zillion.freeuk.com/cs/tann/tan65.html platform: Windows text: Microtan 65 emulator for Windows by David A. Brown - title: MESS emulator project url: http://mess.emuverse.com/ platform: Other platform text: Multiplatform multi-system emulator links: - title: Geoff Macdonalds Microtan65 Homepage url: http://www.geoff.org.uk/?microtan text: Quick guide (useful) and scanned magazines (PDF) ! - title: Oric World's Microtan page url: http://oric.ifrance.com/oric/microtan.html text: A lot of things here, documentations included - title: Wikipedia - Microtan 65 page url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangerine_MICROTAN_65 text: good info here - title: www.microtan.UKPC.net url: http://www.microtan.UKPC.net text: Manuals, roms, magazines, history, etc comments: - author: david date: Thursday 26th May 2022 text: I think the Oric is based on the Prestel adapter that Tangerine developed, not the MicroTan. The main feature of the MicroTan was its rock steady PAL television output - other computers at the time (Tandy/Apple/Commodore) required the purchase of a video monitor. - author: Alan (UK) date: Thursday 27th October 2016 text: If you are happy to build a Microtan Achim, take a look at www.microtan.ukpc.net - author: Achim date: Thursday 3rd March 2016 text: |- Hi,\ I am looking for a Microtan 65 in any condition.\ Bye,\ Achim - author: Michael (Cumbria England) date: Tuesday 12th August 2014 text: Mine travelled up to Applecross in 1984 when I was working at Kishorn in the Oil industry. I think it probably taught me what I needed to get that job! One highlight was writing a "word processor" for a Wang in 1983, learnt from the Microtan, that the whole department used as no one had seen a word processor before! - author: Neil Barnes (UK) date: Friday 13rd July 2012 text: |- The computer on which I really learned hardware and software design, after starting out a year earlier with the MK14. The basic card and the expansion card (Tanex) were available with a tiny backplane of just two slots and sold as a Micron, but I built up a 19" rack - all the cards were eurocard with DIN41614 connectors carrying all the signals needed to do anything... I remember high-resolution (at the time) full-colour graphics cards that I designed. Tanex allowed a Microsoft Basic, but I also recall several other languages including one or two assemblers and Forth - figForth 65 from memory. I was working as an engineer for BBC News at the time, and programmed the countdown display used on the first space shuttle launch on a Microtan. I also cheerfully ripped off the design for any number of useful little projects$ an easy way to synchronise the video output over an incoming broadcast video signal had all sorts of uses in a broadcast studio. Some of the equipment I designed around this card (or around my versions of it) ran critical tasks for over fifteen years. - author: Rex Hanson (UK) date: Friday 4th May 2012 text: I have a Tangerine computer in the loft . . we used to use them at work for all sorts because of their I/O capabilities. A Doctor wrote a Word Processor called Azimov for it. Mine has a long, thin orange (tangerine?) case with an almost square front panel with the connectors on ot. The PCB arrangement is that there are two in ''double decker'' formation. I think it may have been a Micron. The boards didn''t plug into a proper bus, and having later worked for a company which made S100 boards the Tangerine ones were not big enough. They could have used S100 interconnections between PCBs I suppose but they don''t look like S100 format bords to me. Still got the manuals too, plus my son had an Oric. I wonder if he''s still got it? - author: Lloyd Davies, now USA, was UK. (Sunset Beach NC, USA) date: Wednesday 5th October 2011 text: Yes a group of three of us bought a Tangerine Micron in 1979, with the intent of OEM-ing video, voice and games cards and also a colour monitor. These cards, and some accompanying software, were developed and several were built, but the Micron did not go far, probably due to its prohibitively high price. just heard about Steve Jobs. - author: John (UK) date: Thursday 6th June 2002 text: |- Is my memory going funny? I think Tangerine made a computer called the Micron in about 1981, basically an expansion of the Microtan with much the same styling as your Microtan picture. As far as I can remember, it had more memory and BASIC as standard and used the S-100 bus. They were hoping it would be chosen to be the BBC computer. Presumably at least one was made - I've got an old magazine test of it - but I can't see anything about it on the Web! oc_id: 166 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230128063429/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=166 date: '2023-01-28' --- This computer is what is the ZX-80 to the ZX-Spectrum, but for the [Oric 1](/museum/oric-1/). Tangerine developped this computer before they became Oric and produced the Oric-1.\ It was mainly sold in kit, without the complete keyboard shown in the photo, but with a little hexadecimal keyboard. The unextended Microtan 65 couldn't use Basic (Basic65) due to its RAM limitation (1kb), so only machine-code was usable. Te 1kb ROM contained TANBUG, a monitor which allowed to enter machine code programs. But with the unextended Microtan65, there was no way to save your work (not tape facility), so you had to re-type your program each time you switched-on the computer !