A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

How good are Tandy computers? Ask someone who's bought two million of them

Tandy's TRS-80 - the Tandy Radio Shack/Z80 - was one of the first three "appliance" computers - those you could take out of a box, plug in and use right away - ever, when it was launched in the August...

Mission 386.2: The world's first 20MHz 80386 machine.

Here's another nice example of how it seemed every company even vaguely related to electronics was getting into the microcomputer game, in this case UK high-end hifi manufacturer Mission. It had set...

At Micronet we're really talking

Launched at the beginning of 1983, Micronet was a Viewdata dial-up service created as a Prestel project of East Midland Allied Press, the publishing and printing group. Micronet had its roots in the...

They may be smiling now, but they are about to encounter... Psyclapse and Bandersnatch

Imagine had formed when programming wunderkind Eugene Evans and two other senior staff left well-known software house Bug-Byte, which had been famous for Commodore and Sinclair games. The company expanded...

The New Tandy 102: Technology ni yoru shinpo

It's three years since Tandy launched its TRS-80/100 portable computer, and it's back with an updated model, which is smaller and now comes with a built-in modem. It's also completely lost the TRS-80...

Amstrad CPC 6128: While other computers are still under starters orders, you're off and running

The Amstrad CPC 6128 (although the CPC part seems to have been dropped) was first launched in the US in June 1985, before appearing in the UK in August the same year. It had only been six months since...

Kaypro PC

The earlier Kaypro 2 luggable, built by Andrew Kay's Non-Linear Systems as a direct competitor to the Osborne 1, was very successful, selling around 10,000 units a month at one point. Its popularity was...

Concurrent CP/M - Multiplies the power of your microcomputer

Digital Research had been set up in 1976 to capitalise on the popularity of Gary Kildall's CP/M operating system - the popular and de-facto standard OS for most serious microcomputers during the 1970s....

Kaypro: Our Winchesters have been winning the West

Microcomputer adverts are never shy of going with the most obvious simile or metaphor, and this one certainly does that with the placement of an actual Winchester shotgun against a Kaypro 10 - the 10MB...

They're both analytical and calculating

It's not that common for microcomputer adverts to get political, but this one from Victor is getting stuck right in, with a comment on the lack of action for small businesses from the prime minister,...

Zorba: The portable personal with more

This almost-comedy wannabe hack at the Osborne and Kaypro market, with its claim that cramming 80 columns on to a 7" screen is somehow a good thing, appeared in 1983 and was considered as one of the last...

Apricot Collection starts where others finish - then GEM gives you more

This is an advert for an Apricot bundle - the "collection" - which includes the F2 micro, a monitor, printer, keyboard and a tracker-ball mouse. The whole lot came together with Digital Research's GEM...

Gemini: Pick a disk... any disk

Gemini had been founded by John Marshall shortly after the receivers had been sent in to his former company Nascom - builder of what was once Britain's most popular kit computer, the Nascom 1. Nascom...

The Tandata P.A. - Data/voice communicating workstation

Tandata originally formed out of Tangerine, which produced a single-board computer called the Microtan 65. By 1984 it had become Tandata Holdings PLC, with Tandata Marketing Limited as one of its divisions....

Casio PB-100: The best way to put 1,568 steps in your pocket

Casio's PB-100 was one of several small "pocket computers" released around the same time that look more like calculators, however it was programmable as it had a resident version of BASIC capable of storing...