nosher.net
August 1984
New from Casio - mighty micros that fit in your briefcase
1983 and 1984 were definitely the years of the "lap-held" computer, as PCW liked to call it. Pioneered in 1983 by machines like Epson' HX-20, they weren't true laptops as they lacked a proper screen, ...
February 1984
Grafpad - for as many uses as YOU can imagine!
British Micro was a company started by Manas Heghoyan, formerly of Hegotron Printed Circuit Boards Ltd and John Marshall, formerly of Nascom. It had been Heghoyan who bought out the struggling Nascom ...
April 1985
A beginner's guide to the best in business computers
ACT had carved out a briefly-successful niche in the UK with its Apricot range of micros, several of which touted their "Sirius" compatibility, rather than the usual IBM. However, when the company lau...
April 1985
Who says you can't get fired for buying IBM
Wang, founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G. Y. Chu, was a US computer company based in Massachussetts, US, which, at its peak in the 1980s generated revenues of $3 billion before fizzling out, via...
August 1984
The DASH-80, designed and assembled in Great Britain
Another mystery entry, courtesy of Aculab, for its DASH-80 - a Z80-B-based machine running at 6MHz (not 6 milli-Hertz as the advert would have it) with 128K RAM running CP/M and supplied with Wordstar...
July 1982
Think ahead! ITT 3030 Programmed for Growth
When Apple had been a "new struggling company with few resources and was a big consumer group with manufacturing and marketing ability in Europe", ITT had secured the gig to manufacture the Apple II ...
May 1982
Have you got what it takes to take what we've got?
This advert from Canon was aimed at potential resellers rather than buyers and was for the Canon CX-1, a machine first announced in 1981. Following the announcement, Canon went rather quiet about the ...
March 1983
The box is not always black
A nice advert from RAIR showing the company's credentials as an OEM supplier, with the company's original "Black Box" showing up as the Innsite micro, Ryman business computer and most famously as ICL'...
September 1980
BASF gives a good deal
As if to prove that absolutely everyone seemed to be having a go at the microcomputer industry, even German globo-chemico-corp BASF launched its own micro, ostensibly off the bat of its manufacture of...
December 1979
EuroC - Simplicity is the watchword
Built for Euro-Calc by Plessey Microsystems, the EuroC was firmly aimed at businesses with its "computer as furniture" manufacture and extensive list of requisite business software like purchase, sale...
20th March 2015
A Map of connections in the early microcomputer industry
This is an attempt at a visualization of the connections in the sometimes-incestuous early microcomputer industry. It is not yet claimed to be complete, but should be seen as a work-in-progress. Prima...
December 1979
How to solve Systems problems - Zilog's MCZ family
A rare advert from Zilog for its MCZ range of micros - everything from an entry-level floppy-disk-based model up to the MCZ 1/35 rack-mount machine with 10MB storage. The entry-level "low cost" machin...
May 1980
Acorn Atom - from Acorn Computer
This was Acorn's first advert for its first full consumer-oriented micro - the Acorn Atom. The Atom was a 6502-based machine and was available primarily in kit form. It was a natural progression from ...
February 1980
Tandy - new lower prices on the TRS-80
Tandy had announced its follow-up to the 1977 TRS-80 Model 1 at the end of 1979 and was expecting to take orders from the beginning of 1980. Even so, it wasn't initially expecting to ship until April,...
April 1980
RAIR Terminal Choice - choose from the best
This is an early advert from enigmatic company RAIR. RAIR appeared to have started out, like ACT, as a timesharing bureau as well as a supplier of peripherals and terminals. The company, as RAIR Times...