Misplaced Pages

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (December 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Tangerine Computer Systems" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Tangerine Computer Systems was a British microcomputer company founded in 1979 by Dr. Paul Johnson, Mark Rainer and Nigel Penton Tilbury in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire.

The very first product was the successful TAN1648 VDU kit which received much acclaim in the technical press.

The home computer market was beginning to move, albeit slowly, and it was essential to establish a presence. Development and expansion was imperative. It was decided that the latter two partners would relinquish their involvement in order to focus on their consultancy work.

Barry Muncaster became involved operationally and the company moved to new premises in Ely, Cambridgeshire. The company was later renamed, and was known as Oric Products International.

Early years: Microtan 65

Tangerine produced one of the first 6502-based kit computers, the Microtan 65. It had a 3U form factor, a small amount of memory (RAM), a video character generator and UHF modulator for use with a TV set, and a simple latch for entering hex data from a keypad, and the computer was designed to be expandable. The manual came with a one-kilobyte listing of Conway's Game of Life. An optional expansion board could be built with a UART, more memory and BASIC ROMs. Additional expansion boards became available later, offering more RAM, dedicated serial and parallel I/O boards, etc.

After the Microtan 65, Tangerine planned to build a desktop machine and managed to get as far as selling the design for the Microtan 2, also known as Tangerine Tiger, to HH Electronics, better known for building amplifiers. They released it as the HH Tiger, but it was not a commercial success.

Tantel

Several Prestel machines were sold, under the general designation of Tantel:

• AlphaTantel (1981) – Prestel adapter with a full keyboard and a phone connection jack. Connection to a TV was through a RF modulator, but there was also a RGB output. Built in modem was 1200 baud. It was possible to connect a tape recorder to save data and a printer.
• New Tantel Adaptor (1981) – Prestel adapter
• Tantel Data Adaptor (1984) – Data adaptor for use with the Prestel system, including a data tape recorder

1983 onwards: The Oric family

With the success of the ZX Spectrum Tangerine's backers suggested a home computer and Tangerine formed Oric Products International Ltd to develop and release the Oric-1 in 1983. A series of Oric computers (including the Oric Atmos) followed through to 1987.

On 13 October 1983 the factory of Kenure Plastics in Berkshire, where the Oric-1 was manufactured, suffered a fire causing "several thousand pounds worth of damage", in which around 7,000 Oric machines were destroyed. The factory was rebuilt, minus a considerable stock of bits (including 15,000 old ROMs) that went to make up the Oric-1. In the meantime production was said to have restarted within 24 hours in a new factory. Just a day later, a neighbouring warehouse went up in flames. Police were said at the time to suspect that the arsonist got the wrong place first time round. It was about this time, too, that Tansoft moved to co-exist with Oric Research at the Techno Park, Cambridge.

About 160,000 Oric-1s were sold in the UK in 1983 with another 50,000 sold in France (where it was the top-selling machine that year). Although not the 350,000 predicted, it was enough for Oric International to be bought out by Edenspring and given £4m in funding. This enabled the release of the Oric Atmos, an improved successor to the Oric-1 which added a true keyboard and improved ROM.

Although the Atmos failed to turn around Oric's fortunes, in early 1985 they announced several forthcoming models, including an IBM-compatible and an MSX-compatible. On 1 February they demonstrated the Oric Stratos/IQ164 at the Frankfurt Computer Show; on the 2nd however, Edenspring put Oric International into receivership with Tansoft, by then a company in its own right, following in May.

French company Eureka bought the remains of Oric and, after renaming itself, continued to produce the Stratos under that name, followed by the Oric Telestrat in late 1986.

In December 1987 after announcing the Telestrat 2, Oric International went into receivership for the second and final time.

References

1. The choice of the company's name, Tangerine, was inspired by the success of the-then already famous (in the computer business world) Apple Computer.
2. "HH Tiger Personal Computer from c. 1983". Historic Tech. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
3. "Binary Dinosaurs – AlphaTantel Viewdata Terminal".
4. "Alpha Tantel Old Computer the worlds first home internet computer | #308167529".
5. "Microtantel" (PDF). Tansoft Gazette (1): 5. October–November 1981.
6. "Tantel Data Adaptor – Peripheral – Computing History".
7. "Oric lit up". Personal Computer News. 27 October 1983. p. 5. Retrieved 28 June 2024.

• Tangerine Computer Systems
• Defunct computer companies of the United Kingdom
• Defunct computer hardware companies
• Defunct computer systems companies
• Computer companies disestablished in 1987
• Videotex