Transam Triton

The Transam Triton was an early British 8-bit microcomputer announced in 1978 as a partnership between Transam Components and Electronics Today International (ETI) magazine. The Triton appeared in the context of accelerating interest in home computing through the 1970s. The emerging wide availability of single chip microprocessors had enabled computing to become affordable to individuals, whereas previously the devices had been the preserve of businesses and universities. Several similar home computers arrived around this time such as the Nascom and Newbear 77-68 just prior to the launch of the more well known low cost machines such as the Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 that helped establish the mainstream market.

The Transam Triton (image courtesy Happy Little Diodes - YouTube)

As was common at the time, the Triton was originally supplied as a kit of parts for self assembly by electronics hobbyists but was later offered assembled. The machine first appeared in the October 1978 edition of ETI magazine[1] with a full description, schematics and assembly instructions following up in the November edition.[2] The kit included a case, keyboard, PCB, power supply and ROM chips.[3] An "expansion motherboard" peripheral was available, which was a board with an additional PSU that plugged into the expansion slot on the computer and allowed up to eight cards to be connected. An 8K static RAM card and an 8K EPROM card were available.[4]

The Triton preceded the convention of 8-bit micros booting to a BASIC prompt and initially presents a machine code monitor on start. This allows memory locations to be inspected, programs to be started by entering the first memory address, debugging and interaction with the tape I/O. It is possible to develop machine code programs from within the monitor but it is not an assembler, code must be entered as hex digits. An assembler called the Triton Resident Assembly Language Package (TRAP) was available separately. The Triton was supplied with the 2K Tiny BASIC programming language which could be extended with more sophisticated versions. BASIC could be invoked from the monitor.

The machine was sold in multiple configurations, each denoted with an "L" prefix. The cheapest configuration, described in the original magazine articles, supplied a 1K monitor ROM and a 2K BASIC ROM and was originally offered at £286 + VAT in kit form (January 1979 price). Other configurations added extended BASIC and monitor functionality and a Pascal compiler. A bundle was available that supported the then popular CP/M operating system and a disk interface for Shugart 5.25" and 8" floppy drives.