Transam Advert - September 1979

The Transam Triton was a British-built Intel 8080A-based kit computer^[1] that was first released in December 1978. Somewhat uniquely, it offered different levels of firmware with alternate ROM-based BASICs at its various price points: the entry level kit, which retailed at £286 + 15% VAT (£1,840 in 2020 money) offered a 2K Tiny BASIC; for only an extra £8 (£44 in 2020, and frankly for an increase of only 3% who wouldn't?) you could get a 2.5K Tiny BASIC or for £459 (£2,570 in 2020) the kit came with a 7.5K "Scientific" BASIC plus an additional off-board 56K memory (bringing the total up to 64Kb, the maximum an 8-bit processor can address).

Transam were also re-sellers, and at the end of 1979 announced that they had acquired a dealership for Ithaca's micro boards (single-board computers) and other products. That, apparently, made them one of the few London sources of cheap S100 components, as well as offering Commodore PET, Tandy and Apple memory upgrades^[2].