Microtan technical reference

Hardware and expansion manuals

TAN-DOS, Colour VDU and Mousepacket video-board documentation for the Microtan 65.

These documents cover several of the Microtan’s more substantial expansions: the TAN-DOS floppy-disk system, the Mousepacket Colour VDU and the ETI real-time clock/calendar project. They complement the original system manuals and the technical-reference material elsewhere in this section.

The current Linux/WSL2 emulator implements the Mousepacket 384×250 display and later TANBUG/BASIC firmware. It also emulates the optional TAN-DOS controller with eight logical drives backed by raw disk images and the ETI real-time clock at its published example address. See the current emulator page for its present capabilities and links to the implementation notes.

TAN-DOS

Download Filename Format Size Platform or compatibility Notes
TAN-DOS reconstruction manual TANDOSManual.pdf PDF 367.7 KiB PDF reader A 32-page manual covering the reconstructed TAN-DOS hardware.
TAN-DOS reconstruction manual, Appendix A TANDOSManualAppA.pdf PDF 92.6 KiB PDF reader The 37-page Appendix A supplied with the reconstruction documentation.

Colour VDU and Mousepacket video board

Download Filename Format Size Platform or compatibility Notes
Colour VDU board manual CVBmanual.pdf PDF 1.00 MiB PDF reader A 31-page manual for the Colour VDU board.
Colour VDU board schematic, revision 1.1a CVB_schem11a.pdf PDF 332.1 KiB PDF reader Four pages of Colour VDU board schematics.
Mousepacket video board v1.0 MPvideoBoardv10.pdf PDF 205.5 KiB PDF reader Four-page Mousepacket video-board document.

ETI real-time clock/calendar

Download Filename Format Size Platform or compatibility Notes
ETI Microtan real-time clock project ETI_Microtan_RTC.pdf PDF 500.5 KiB PDF reader The original four-page construction article from Electronics Today International, April 1983.
MM58174A real-time clock application note National_AN-0359_MM58174A.pdf PDF 170.1 KiB PDF reader National Semiconductor application note AN-0359 covering the clock chip, register interface and interrupt modes.