Tangerine Advert - July 1980
From Practical Computing
Microtan 65: a 6502-based computer
Just a few months before Microtan went through another of its various ownership changes comes this advert for its Microtan 65, on a background as orange as the company's name.
The basic Microtan 65 ran MOS Technology's 6502 processor and came with 1K of user RAM and a 1K machine-code monitor, called Tanbug. It also provided built-in video out, enabling the Microtan to be connected to a regular domestic television.
As well as the basic model, the advert also mentions the Tanex expansion board, which gave an additional 7K of RAM, a 6K ROM and an 8K ROM version of Microsoft's BASIC.
It also provided a generous range of I/O ports, including a 32-line parallel port, four 16-bit counter timers, a cassette interface, two TTL serial ports, and a full RS-232C port with programmable baud rates.
As an alternative, there's the presumably-cheaper Tanram board, which also offered an extra 7K RAM in static form as well as 32K of dynamic RAM, apparently "fully expanding the available address space of the 6502 microprocessor", which could address - like most 8-bit processors of the day - up to a maximum of 64K via its two-byte memory addressing scheme.
Also shown is the Tangerine's "keyboard" - a small 20-key keypad module which offered hexadecimal input for 0-9 and A-F, as well as as the additional letters O, R, P, L, M, G, S, N, and an extra letter C, which were accessible via the shift key.
These weren't actually letters of the alphabet as such, but corresponded to Tanbug monitor mnemonics, for example C was "copy a block of memory", M was "modify or examine a block of memory", or S was "enter Step mode".
A few months later, Tangerine, which had already been dissolved and re-launched as a company back in October 1979, would undergo a management buyout as co-founders Paul Johnson and Barry Muncaster were unhappy with their lack of majority shareholding in the "new" Tangerine[1].
Despite the popularity of the Microtan, Tangerine would eventually get bored of it and abandoned production after selling around 10,000 units. The micro itself was eventually ressurected by the unrelated Microtanic in 1983[2].
Tangerine went on to become Oric.
Date created: 18 October 2026
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