nosher.net
September 1984
"Re-balance This Sheet in One Second"
Like several computers of the day, Acorn's BBC Micro could take software in the form of PROM - programmable read-only memory. However whilst some, like the VIC-20, would take it in the form of a plug-...
December 1982
Atari Star Raiders: New game, private property
This "advert", which appeared in the pre-Christmas edition of Personal Computer World and which encourages infringers to write to Graham Daubney - who would later become director of developments for S...
June 1987
Atari 520STM: To help you destroy the aliens, we've massacred the price
The Atari 520STM was fundamentally the same machine as the previous ST model, except that it came with a built-in TV modulator and had its OS and GEM graphics manager supplied in ROM. The "special off...
April 1985
Instead of computers catching up with technology, technology now has to catch up with a computer
In the summer of 1982, one-time Olympic chess player and former chess grandmaster David Levy, of Intelligent Software - a company best known for producing programs like Cyrus IS Chess, written by Rich...
October 1984
Kaypro: The last word in portable micros
Built by Non-Linear Systems but designed by an out-sourced circuit design consultant as a direct competitor to the Osborne 1, the Kaypro II - Roman-numeralled like the Apple II - was for a while a hig...
December 1984
Olivetti - Compatibility plus!
Along with almost every major manufacturer of the time, Olivetti was not one to refuse a spot on the bandwagon that was the IBM PC format, here offering an 8086 "true 16 bit" PC clone, although with a...
July 1987
The new IBM Personal System/2. Marry into the future without divorcing the past.
By 1986, IBM seemed to be suffering, possibly from the rise of the clones of its original IBM 5150 (the "PC"), but possibly also because it had slowed down product releases in the PC market it had cre...
December 1984
On average, there is one new software package written for the IBM Personal Computer every day
IBM's original PC - the 5150 - had been the machine that spawned a whole new era of generic, dull and identi-kit computers which ended up trouncing everything that had gone before. However, this was n...
February 1985
Ask an expert why the Electron's the best micro in its class
Another advert for the Acorn Electron, the cut-down version of the BBC Micro. In common with many other Electron adverts, it stresses the fact that it's mostly the same as the expensive £400 BBC Micro...
July 1985
"All you need to do this, is this: The Commodore 128 and 64"
Officially launched at the 1985 January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and built with the same case used for the late-model C64s, the Commodore 128 was the company's last 8-bit computer. Even ...
November 1987
Z88: Buying a powerful personal computer is no longer a big issue. Or a big deal.
After the financial turmoil bought on by the QL fiasco - late delivery, dodgy early firmware and the curse of the Microdrive - together with other disasters like the Pocket TV and the C5, developed by...
February 1987
"New Amiga 500 - Now other home computers are just toys"
The original Amiga, or A1000 as it came to be known, nearly didn't make it when it launched in 1986, as Commodore was going through some major financial problems whilst its potential saviour machine w...
January 1977
Introducing Sol Systems - A complete computer/terminal concept
First shipped only one month before the date of this advert, in December 1976, the Sol-20, designed by Lee Felsenstein, was an S-100-based system which offered a range of CPU options (according to the...
December 1986
Programming the 68000 by Metacomco
St Pauls, Bristol-based Metacomco had been quietly writing system software and compilers for the Motorola 68000 processor, and had also previously licenced its own 8086 Basic interpreter for $800,000 ...
December 1986
Commodore Amiga - astounding by any stretch of the imagination
The Amiga, code-named "Lorraine", was first demonstrated to a select few at June 1984's CES show in Chicago, by Amiga, a company founded by Jay Miner, one of the original designers of the famous Atari...