New from Tangerine Computer Systems - the Microtan 65

This is an early advert from Tangerine announcing the company's new Microtan 65 in its simplest form - just a board with chips on it and an RF-modulator to drive a standard domestic television. The company would also offer niceties like a case and a keyboard, but only sold around 10,000 units before abandoning it. The '65 was later resurrected by an un-related company called Microtanic around July 1983[source: "Back from the brink", Personal Computer News, September 1 1983, p. 26]. Ready-assembled, the Microtan 65 was available for £98, or around [[98|1980]] in [[now]].

The name of the company - Tangerine - was a nod to Apple, in a similar (but less litigous) way to Pearcom - a company which went one step beyond to also call its machine the Pear II. The 65 in the case of the Microtan referred to the MOS Technologies' 6500-series chips, in this case the popular 6502[source: The Legacy of the BBC Micro, Tilly Blyth, NESTA, May 2012, p. 12] - as used in a raft of micros of the era from the Apple II to Commodore's VIC-20, as well as the Microtan.