A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

The Alphatronic PC means business

The Alphatronic PC was very much the baby of the Alphatronic family, being a Z80-based 8-bit machine designed and built in Japan to TA's specification, primarily for the home market. It sold mostly...

When you were a child, you didn't like it when the light went out. Are you any different now?

Zenith's notebook micro was based on Intel's CPU of the same name - the 80386SL, which was a variant of the '386 which had been designed specifically for use in portable computers. It was reasonably...

Schneider Computers... Stand out from the crowd!

Alan Sugar sometimes claimed that Amstrad's early success was because it didn't try to crack the European or US market, a move which almost bankrupted Acorn. Eventually though the company had to expand,...

Our powerful multi-user systems come complete with some new Power Points!

From the days before "Power Point" meant something other than slideshow presentations in tedious meetings on a Friday afternoon, comes this advert from Equinox for its latest multi-user system. The company...

One good idea leads to another. And another.

Here's an advert from Apple that nicely shows the updates made to the original Macintosh, launched in 1984, up to the latest - the Macintosh II. After the original Mac had been launched by the famous...

Europe's best-kept business secret - Now revealed in Britain

It's the beginning of the end for Commodore, as the company is now fully on the IBM-compatible gravy train, leaving behind its roots as the company which launched the world's first modern PC in January...

We want to show you how much our new £505 printer can produce in 60 seconds

"300 Adverts" was once contacted by someone asking whether there was a name for the style of adverts popular in the 1970s which were almost all some sort of text, often comprising straightforward lists...

The business computer that's a real mover

Here's another celebrity advertising endorsement for a microcomputer, this time featuring World Cup-winning footballer Bobby Charlton, where it's tempting to think that the legendary player knew as much...

At long last, the end of the queue is in sight

This advert, very reminiscent of the famous Saatchi & Saatchi "Labour Isn't Working" campaign of 1978 and '79, is for Gemini's MultiNet low-cost multi-user networking system. MultiNet was based upon...

Tandy Model 4P - Power and portability at a truly unbeatable price!

It wasn't until 1986 that Tandy/Radio Shack officially dropped both the Radio Shack part of the company name, as well as the TRS designation that had been part of its naming scheme since its first - the...

My job takes me away from my PC - but nothing takes me away from my Hewlett-Packard Portable

Staking a claim to the entire industry of laptop (or lap-held) computers with a highly generic name of The Portable, HP's laptop was from the era of portable computers with chunky cases and ultra-letterbox...

The New Standard for Personal Scientific and Technical Visualisation Workstations

U-Microcomputers of Warrington in Cheshire, UK, had established itself as a supplier of Motorola 68000-based single- and multi-user systems aimed at the software developer market. Here it's moved up...

U-MAN: The next step

With customers as diverse as British Telecom, Oxford and Cambridge universities, the British Cast Iron Research Association and London Weekend Television, U-Microcomputers Limited of Warrington, Cheshire...

Since Tava got that 20MB Winchester, they're inseparable

The Flyer appears to have been manufactured by Tava USA Incorporated, a company which was previously known as Replitech and which had bought out the original Tava Corporation only a couple of years after...

A chip off the old block

Torch's Graduate was an unusual hybrid, being part sort-of IBM PC, with an Intel 8088 CPU and a pair of 720K 5¼" floppy disk drives, but no input or display of its own, as this was handled by the Acorn...