Tangerine Computer Systems
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Tangerine Computer Systems[1] 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
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.[2][3]
- New Tantel Adaptor (1981) – Prestel adapter[4]
- Tantel Data Adaptor (1984) – Data adaptor for use with the Prestel system, including a data tape recorder[5]
1983 onwards: The Oric family
With the success of the
On 13 October 1983 the factory of Kenure Plastics in Berkshire, where the
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
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
In December 1987 after announcing the Telestrat 2, Oric International went into receivership for the second and final time.
References
- Apple Computer.
- ^ "Binary Dinosaurs – AlphaTantel Viewdata Terminal".
- ^ "Alpha Tantel Old Computer the worlds first home internet computer | #308167529".
- ^ "Microtantel" (PDF). Tansoft Gazette (1): 5. October–November 1981.
- ^ "Tantel Data Adaptor – Peripheral – Computing History".