A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

Imagine a totally portable computer that slips into your briefcase. We did

Considered by some as the first "true" laptop, Epson's HX-20 was actually designed - in 1980 - by Yukio Yokozawa, an employee of Seiko. It ran two Hitachi 6301 CPUs - a clone of Motorola's 6800 - at...

Oric-1: The computer challenge

The Oric was aimed very much at Sinclair's ZX Spectrum market, with even the models and price being similar. It actually started out significantly cheaper than the Spectrum at £99.95, compared to the...

Meet the OSI Challenger

Before it was even the Challenger 1 is this advert for Ohio Scientific Instruments' Challenger. It was an S-100-based system which derived from the company's earlier "Superboard 400" micro boards, however...

Equinox: A Word Processor, Data Base Manager and a computer all for £1,195

Parasitic Engineering of Albany, California, would go bust in 1983, but prior to that it had established a network of resellers for its Equinox micros throughout Europe. This included its UK dealer -...

Almarc and Vector Graphic - the complete partnership in microcomputers

Here's another straightforward advert from Vector Graphics' sole UK distributor, Almarc Data Systems of Nottingham. It shows nicely Vector's range of micros available at the time. They were all Z80-based...

Comart Communicator: The clean simplicity outside... conceals the pedigree inside

Comart - based in St. Neots, Huntingdon - was founded in 1976 by David Broad and John Lamb as a mail-order supplier of imported software and S-100 boards, but by 1977 was reselling products from Cromemco,...

RAIR - Terminals for your micro

This an very early advert for RAIR - the enigmatic British company which started out in 1978 as a time-share consultancy and supplier of terminals. It shows a range of peripherals that would be needed...

Acorn Computer: Four of a kind!

This is another early advert from Acorn Computer - the trading name of Cambridge Processor Unit Limited (CPU), a company set up in 1978 by Chris Curry - formerly of Sinclair Radionics and Science of Cambridge,...

Introducing the Space Byte 8085 CPU

This advert is for one of many single-board computers available at the time, but it's worth an entry because the company name is one of comparitively few which actually used some sort of space-age theme....

Atari 520ST: It's not all fun and games

Here's another advert for Atari's 520ST - for Sixteen/Thirtytwo - the Motorola 68000-based machine with 512K RAM and which became popular amongst musicians, thanks to its built-in MIDI connectors. There's...

Sig/Net 3: All the advantages of other dual 8 and 16 bit micros plus that vital bit more

Here's an advert for the third iteration of Chris Shelton's Sig/Net - the modular multi-user system which was launched in 1981. It also implies that dual-processor multi-user microcomputers were common....

Vector 3: Computers for the advancement of society

There weren't many micro companies of the era that claimed that their products were for the advancement of society, but here is such a mission statement from Vector Graphic in this US advert for its Vector...

Apple III: Now that you've seen their first generation, take a look at our third

It's a bit spurious to assume that the third generation of anything is necessarily better than the first of something else, especially if your third version is essentially the same as your first from...

The IBM Personal Computer: A tool for modern times

This is an advert for the original 5150 IBM PC, possibly the model which more than any other defined personal computers for a generation or two. Even the term "personal computer" (or PC), which had...

The Commodore 8296 Business Computer puts power at your command

Released in 1983, the 8296 was the last of the PET line - the world's first personal computer, which had been first shown at Chicago CES in January 1977. Commodore had already tried to update its PET...