Tangerine Computer Systems (founded in 1979 by Dr. Paul Johnson and Barry Muncaster and named in the footsteps of Apple) produced one of the first 6502-based kit computers, the Microtan 65. The company was run out of offices in Ely, in the United Kingdom. The Tangerine had a 3U form factor, not much memory, a video character generator and a simple latch for entering hex data from a keypad. The majority of the chips were not socketed which led to all sorts of hardware debugging issues. The manual came with a 1K listing of Conway's Game of Life. An optional expansion board could be built with UART, for keyboard, more memory and BASIC ROMs. Jump to: navigation, search This page refers to the year 1979. ... Jump to: navigation, search Apple Computer, Inc. ... The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by MOS Technology in 1975. ... There are other places also called Ely. ... Jump to: navigation, search Gosper Glider Gun creating gliders. The Game of Life is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. ... BASIC is a family of high-level programming languages. ...

After the Microtan 65, Tangerine planned to build a desktop machine and got as far as selling the design for the Microtan 2/Tangerine Tiger to a company who never built it. With the success of the Sinclair 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. Based on a 1 MHz 6502A CPU, it came in 16 KB or 48 KB RAM variants for £129 and £169 respectively, matching the prices and models available for the popular Spectrum. Both versions had a 16 KB ROM containing the operating system and a modified BASIC language interpreter. Sinclair Research Ltd was a home computer company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge, England. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Sinclair ZX Spectrum was a small home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research. ... The home computer is a consumer-friendly word for the second generation of microcomputers (the technical term that was previously used), entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1983 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Jump to: navigation, search A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix kilo-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to either 1024 or 1000 bytes. ... Different types of RAM. From top to bottom: DIP, SIPP, SIMM 30 pin, SIMM 72 pin, DIMM, RIMM RAM redirects here. ... Jump to: navigation, search Read-only memory (ROM) is used as a storage medium in computers. ... Jump to: navigation, search In computing, an operating system (OS) is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations. ...

The Oric-1 improved somewhat over the Spectrum with a chiclet keyboard design replacing the Spectrum's reknowned "dead flesh" one. In addition the Oric had a true sound chip, the programmable GI 8912, and two graphical modes handled by a semi-custom ASIC (ULA) which also managed the interface between the processor and memory. The two modes were a LORES text only mode (though the character set could be redefined to produce graphics) with 28 rows of 40 characters and a HIRES mode with 200 rows of 240 pixels above three lines of text. Like the Spectrum, the Oric-1 suffered from attribute clash - albeit to a lesser degree in HIRES mode, when a single row of pixels could be coloured differently from the one below in contrast to the Spectrum needing to colour eight. As it was meant for the home market, it had a built in television RF modulator as well as RGB output and was meant to work with a basic audio tape recorder to save and load data. A chiclet keyboard is slang for a computer keyboard built with an array of small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like erasers or pieces of chewing gum. ... A sound chip is an integrated circuit (i. ... The AY-3-8912 was a 3 voice sound chip designed by General Instruments. ... The acronym ASIC, depending on context, may stand for: Application-specific integrated circuit ASIC programming language Australian Securities and Investments Commission This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... One of the Manchu clans. ... Attribute clash was a display artifact caused by limitations in the graphics circuitry of early colour 8-bit home computers - infamously the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. ... An RF modulator (for radio frequency modulator) is a small device that takes an input signal and outputs radio frequency-modulated signals. ... The RGB color model utilizes the additive model in which red, green, and blue light are combined in various ways to create other colors. ...

About 160,000 Oric-1s 1 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 2 it was enough for Oric International to be bought out by Edenspring and given £4m in funding. This enabled them to release the Oric Atmos, which added a true keyboard and an updated V1.1 ROM to the Oric-1. Unfortunately, it also added a faulty tape error checking routine. Soon after the Atmos was released the modem, printer and 3-inch floppy disk drive originally promised for the Oric-1 were announced and released by the end 1984. Jump to: navigation, search A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a circular piece of thin, flexible (i. ... Jump to: navigation, search This page is about the year 1984. ...

The Atmos failed to turn around Oric International's fortunes, but they persevered and in early 1985 Oric announced several new machines were on the way, including an IBM compatible and an MSX-based computer. On February 1st 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 International 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. Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the year. ... Jump to: navigation, search MSX is the name of a standard for home computers in the 1980s (see also The Home Computer Era in the History of computing hardware). ... Jump to: navigation, search Frankfurt am Main ▶(?) [ˈfraŋkfʊrt] is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany. ... Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their creditors. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External Links

• Microtan 65 at the Old Computers Museum
• Oric-1 at the Old Computers Museum
• Oric Atmos at the Old Computers Museum
• The Oric FAQ
• Oric World