website/content/museum/tangerine-microtan-65.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
TANGERINE MICROTAN 65	Computers	Home Computer	United Kingdom	1979	6502	name company company_name specs tabs photos screenshots emulators links comments oc_id source MICROTAN 65 /companies/tangerine TANGERINE label value NAME MICROTAN 65 label value MANUFACTURER Tangerine label value TYPE Home Computer label value ORIGIN United Kingdom label value YEAR 1979 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE Machine-code (through TANBUG) label value KEYBOARD Hewadecimal keyboard in basic version label value CPU 6502 label value SPEED 0.75 MHz label value RAM 1 kb (up to 48k) label value ROM 1 kb (TANBUG v1), upgradable to 14kb label value TEXT MODES 32 x 16 label value GRAPHIC MODES 64 x 64 with graphic characters label value COLORS Monochrome label value I/O PORTS Bus, Tape, Monitor label value PRICE From $82 (single board version) photos software emulators links title subtitle text image COMPLETE SYSTEM IN RACK null title subtitle text image AIR ATTACK null title subtitle text image BREAKOUT null title subtitle text image FACE INVADERS null title subtitle text image FULL-SCREEN GRAPHIC PATTERN null title subtitle text image SHOOT DOWN null title subtitle text image SLOT MACHINE null title subtitle text image GOBBLER Excellent adaptation null title subtitle text image HELL'S BELLS Excellent clone of "Hunchback" ! null title subtitle text image MOON CRESTA null title subtitle text image MOON RESCUE Title screen null title subtitle text image MOON RESCUE Excellent and very fast. null title subtitle text image ASTRO FIGHTER null title url platform text Tangerine Microtan 65 Emulator http://www.zillion.freeuk.com/cs/tann/tan65.html Windows Microtan 65 emulator for Windows by David A. Brown title url platform text MESS emulator project http://mess.emuverse.com/ Other platform Multiplatform multi-system emulator title url text Geoff Macdonalds Microtan65 Homepage http://www.geoff.org.uk/?microtan Quick guide (useful) and scanned magazines (PDF) ! title url text Oric World's Microtan page http://oric.ifrance.com/oric/microtan.html A lot of things here, documentations included title url text Wikipedia - Microtan 65 page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangerine_MICROTAN_65 good info here title url text www.microtan.UKPC.net http://www.microtan.UKPC.net Manuals, roms, magazines, history, etc author date text david Thursday 26th May 2022 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 date text Alan (UK) Thursday 27th October 2016 If you are happy to build a Microtan Achim, take a look at www.microtan.ukpc.net author date text Achim Thursday 3rd March 2016 Hi,\ I am looking for a Microtan 65 in any condition.\ Bye,\ Achim author date text Michael (Cumbria England) Tuesday 12th August 2014 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 date text Neil Barnes (UK) Friday 13rd July 2012 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 date text Rex Hanson (UK) Friday 4th May 2012 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 date text Lloyd Davies, now USA, was UK. (Sunset Beach NC, USA) Wednesday 5th October 2011 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 date text John (UK) Thursday 6th June 2002 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! 166 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230128063429/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=166 2023-01-28

This computer is what is the ZX-80 to the ZX-Spectrum, but for the 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 !