1981 adverts

Three Atari Video Computer Systems Must Be Won!

Here's a nice competition advert which featured in a March or April edition of the comic 2000AD, and which offered the chance to win one of three Atari VCS2600 (sometimes known as...

Outside of the garden you need a computer that can grow - Ithaca InterSystems DPS1

This adverts shows one of many ageing Zilog Z80-based machines of this era running on an S-100 bus - the Ithaca InterSystems DPS1. It seemed to aimed at the laboratory market, wi...

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. ...

The $149.95 Personal Computer: Introducing the Sinclair ZX81

Before Sinclair cut a deal with US watch-manufacturer Timex to distributes the ZX81 in the US as the Timex Sinclair 1000 or 1500, it was available in its original "Sinclair ZX81" ...

The Sinclair ZX81 Personal Computer - New High Performance, New Low Price, Same Sinclair Simplicity

Here's another advert for the Sinclair ZX81 - the computer that sold more than 1.5 million units and which almost single-handedly kick-started the computer revolution in the UK. I...

VIC 20: The Waiting is Over. The Rush has Begun

This is the advert that kicked off Commodore's marketing campaign in the UK for the VIC-20 - the 6502-based colour computer which became the first ever to sell a million units, go...

Commodore PET: Choosing a Computer Made Simple

The PET had been around for nearly five years by the time this advert was published, and so it's less of a case of advertising the hardware - which hasn't really changed much, apa...

Pear II - we proudly announce the arrival of the computer you have been waiting for

This advert is a brazen attempt to sell an Apple II clone machine, but unlike Franklin's Ace 1200, had the extra "beyond the call of duty" feature of even naming the machine and c...

Versatility is the Key - The Video Genie System

The EG 3003 Video Genie System was a sort-of TRS-80 Model 1 clone, made by enigmatic Hong Kong electronics company EACA and distributed in the UK by Lowe Electronics. Lowe, an es...

Important notice to all micro-computer purchasers: The BBC Micro-computer system

This is perhaps the advert that really started it all for Acorn, at least in terms of the Acorn Proton, a.k.a. the BBC Micro. It announced the upcoming availability of the new BB...

The Commodore Computer Range Price List

This advert is a sales-channel price list for later-model Commodore PET computers. Prices ranged from £632.50 for the entry-level 16K 40-column 12" screen PET 4016 (about £3,390 ...

WH Smith: What Would I Do With a Computer?

This advert is a small A5 4-page booklet produced by UK newsagent chain WH Smith and demonstrates nicely how such regular High Street shops were very much part of the early home c...

Turn your Apple into the world's most versatile personal computer.

This is a real curiosity from Microsoft which shows how different the company was before the power of its coming hegemony with Intel and its own MS-DOS - and later Windows operati...

You don't need a degree to use a VIC-20 Home Computer - just a degree of common sense

This advert, given that it shows a Mark 1 VIC-20 without the bundled tape drive that soon came long, probably comes from late 1981 - the year that the VIC-20 was launched in the UK...

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...