A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts
In a private room at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago in January 1977, Commodore showed the world's first complete "personal computer" - the PET 2001 - an "appliance" micro that for the first time could be taken out of the box, plugged in and used by regular people without a soldering iron.
Soon, Tandy and Apple joined in and the market grew steadily, but then Commodore and Sinclair launched cheap home computers in the early 80s that changed everything.
The market exploded from tens of thousands of machines a year to millions, as famous 1970s names like Cromemco, IMSAI, Nascom and MITS were swept away. Micro companies were suddenly worth $1 billion dollars and their employees were millionaires. Hundreds of companies launched hundreds of incompatible machines. Price wars were started, old scores were settled and companies were destroyed.
Eight bits made way for 16 and 32 in the space of a few years. For a while Britain led the world in manufacture and adoption, with 80% of all computers sold in Europe being sold in the UK.
The fate of many microcomputer companies. From a Business Operating Software advert in Personal Computer World, June 1986.
Then the 8-bit market reached saturation and more companies imploded - Sinclair was sold for its name and assets only, Acorn almost didn't make it and a raft of also-rans fell by the wayside - Camputers, Dragon Data, Elan, Oric and Jupiter Cantab to name but a few. Even big names like Timex and Texas Instruments were burned.
Meanwhile, the sleeping giant that was IBM launched its 5150 at the end of 1981 and watched as it slowly but inevitably over the next few years became the standard. Other companies cloned it, copied and improved it and soon the only game in town was the IBM PC.
From the latter half of the 1980s, every micro company and its dog was building generic beige boxes, and people wanted the same beige boxes at home and work. The home computer as a concept was dead, and the "wonder years" were over.
This collection of over 300 adverts attempts to tell something of that story...
Multitech
May 1983
Micro-Professor: The 64K Computer That Spans Generations
First launched in 1982, the Micro-Professor MPF II was Multitech Corportion's update to its earlier MPF1 machine, although this time it was aimed more at the home and Apple II mar...
Multitech
November 1983
The new MPF1 Plus - The lowest-cost Z80 computer with all these features!
The Microprofessor MPF-1 Plus was a redesigned version of the original MPF-1, originally released by Multitech Industrial Corporation in the summer of 1982. Its launch came after ...
Quantum
May 1983
Computerise without compromise: Quantum QM 2000
This is another seemingly one-off advert from Leed's-based Quantum Computer Systems Limited, for its new all-British Quantum 2000 microcomputer, where the definition of "all Briti...
Acorn
August 1983
Join the jet set
Acorn wasn't particularly well know for its own-branded peripherals, so this advert is fairly unusual not only for that, but also because the printing technology in use - spark-er...
ITCS
August 1983
New: The IT Andromeda Zita-E
This is another mystery entry, in this case for the Andromeda Zita-E - for Executive - from ITCS, or IT Computer Services Limited of Ashford, near Staines, in Middlesex. The And...
Ai Electronics
June 1981
Now the integral system with performance, quality, expandability and reliability
The ABC24 and ABC26 were Z80 micros which differed only in the size of floppy disk drive they offered - either 620K on dual 5¼" drives, or an impressive 2.3MB on dual 8" drives. ...
Atari
May 1986
The new 1Mb 1040STF: With a memory like that you can be sure we haven't forgotten a thing
By the middle of 1986, the IBM PC was well-established as the "standard" computer architecture, but there was a handful of alternatives, including Commodore's Amiga, Apple's Macin...
Toyo Menka
January 1983
You'll never forget your first TMK 300 micro
Unlike the rest of the world then, as this advert appears to be a one-off - and even then it appeared in specialist systems magazine Systems International, rather than a mainstrea...
Hewlett-Packard
January 1983
HP 9000: Today, HP can give you full 32-bit power
At around the same time as HP was dabbling in the mainstream microcomputer market with machines like its HP-86, released in 1982 and which retailed for $2,820, which is about £8,5...
GEC
January 1983
The new GEC 1450 makes building a system child's play.
GEC - or General Electric Company plc - was a large British conglomerate with interests in defence, electronics, communications and engineering. It was founded in 1886, making it ...
Cifer
January 1983
A Graphic Display of Intelligence
Cifer was established in Melksham, Wiltshire in 1972, as a manufacturer of terminals and - later on - microcomputers. According to its advert it became a major supplier in the E...
Cyber Electronics
December 1981
Make friends with Panther... The British micro system
Here's another advert for another fairly generic Z80-based (or possibly Intel 8080) CP/M micro system, from Cyber Electronics Ltd. of Ilford in Essex. Unlike most similar adverts...
Limrose
November 1978
Low cost, expandable Limrose LMC 6800-2
Limrose Electronics was founded in May 1971 by Dr Ravi Raizada as a seller of electronic logic tutors which taught how basic logic gates operated. It went on to release the MTP80...
MOS Technology
September 1975
MOS Technology
The image above is adapted from a Wikimedia public-domain source MOS Technology was founded in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in 1969 by three former employees of General Instrument...
Scicon
October 1978
The 200 mph micro
Whilst it feels like pretty much every modern car is more computer than motor, the idea of using electronics to manage some or all of a car's engine and performance dates back dec...