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...
Pertec
May 1979
The Attaché Business System - The only system designed and supported exclusively for business applications
Launched in the UK in May 1979, the Attaché was said by Practical Computing in its May 1979 issue to be "in a sense, Pertec's first microcomputer", in that unlike the company's pr...
Nascom/Lucas
July 1979
If you can buy more on one board for under £300 - buy us one too!
This is the advert which launched the Nascom 2 - an update of the popular Chris Shelton-designed Nascom 1, which was first launched in 1977. The Nascom 2 came with the faster 4MH...
Texas Instruments
November 1978
New from Texas Instruments. The world's most powerful pocket calculators. For the easiest problem solving ever.
From the company which "made micro-electronic calculators and watches possible" - Texas Instruments - comes a contender for crown, albeit with a mere 45 buttons compared to Commo...
Butel-Comco
March 1981
Butel-Athena: The ideal Small Business System
From another company that appears to have left no trace whatsoever - Butel-Comco Limited of Southampton - comes this advert for the Athena, one of only a handful of microcomputers...
Micro Networks
September 1981
Micronetworks introduce PM1000
Here's a seemingly one-off advert for what also seems to be a one-off machine: the PM1000 from Micro Networks, of Pall Mall in London. It's unusual because it's one of only a han...
Kontron
October 1981
Kontron: Look to tomorrow with the PSIΨ80 Microcomputer Series
It's another advert aimed at OEMs rather than the end user, this time from Kontron Mikrocomputer GmbH of Echning, near Munich in what was West Germany. Demonstrating its target m...
Shelton
December 1981
4MHz Z80A, 64K RAM, twin 200K disks for £1299
Here is probably the first advert of Chris Shelton's Sig/Net, launched around July or August this year. Shelton, who had once worked for , had started Shelton Instruments back i...
OKI
February 1982
The if800 - Colour in your computing
The awkwardly-named if800 from OKI - first launched in 1980 - was on the face of it yet another conventional Z80A-based micro, however it differed from many by coming with an inte...
Altos
December 1981
Dealers, we'll help you out of the microcomputer jungle
In the days before visual accessibility guidelines existed, and aimed more at potential dealers than the general public, this advert for Altos is actually placed by Microtex of Wi...
Acorn
August 1981
The Acorn Econet: the new low-cost interconnecting communication system for computers and peripherals
Here's a rare advert for Acorn's Econet - an affordable network using cheap four- or five-wire cabling (instead of the coaxial cabling found on some other networks) and which coul...
Hotel Microsystems
November 1981
5¼" Winchesters - from Hotel Microsystems
Over a year before Hotel Microsystems Limited - later HM Systems - launched its first microcomputer, the , comes this advert positioning the company as an importer and parts suppl...
Haywood
August 1981
Some Hard Facts from Haywood
Given the side-bar looking for distributors, this would appear to be a fairly early advert from Haywood Electronic Associates, trading as Haywood. However, the company appeared to...
Onyx
August 1981
The Onyx C8000 Series
Onyx was formed in December 1978 by two former Zilog employees, Robert Marsh and Kip Myers, with some additional input from fellow former Zilog employee Doug Broiles, who had left...
ACT/Apricot
June 1984
Apricot Xi: What will they say about this one?
Less than a year before Applied Computer Techniques, or ACT, changed its company name to that of its first computer - Apricot - comes this advert for its Xi model. ACT, which had...
Hotel Microsystems
June 1984
Minstrel 68K - A truly sophisticated model that gives the power you need
This crossover advert takes March 1983's Z80-based Minstrel from Hotel Microsystems, replaces the Z80 with a Motorola 68000, rebrands the company as HM Systems and releases the ma...