1982 adverts

Omninet: The Corvus Connection

The Corvus Omninet was an early Local Area Network (LAN) system which used twisted pair cables, rather than the earlier and more expensive coaxial. It used the RS-422 standard and...

Simplify your bookkeeping with this $3432 Radio Shack TRS-80 Computer System

Here's another advert from Tandy/Radio Shack for the Model III variant of its TRS-80, or Trash-80 - the original version of which had been launched back in 1977. It was not uncom...

The Link from Panasonic. The portable computer that lets you take the advantages of an office computer anywhere you go.

It's an advert from Matshushita Electric Industrial Co., trading as Panasonic, for its awkward-to-search-for "The Link" portable computer. Pitched less as a full-on microcompute...

Sharp: The Amazing Pocket Computer in Living Color

Sharp's PC-1500 was - like Epson's HX-20 and Tandy/Radio Shack's Micro-Executive Workstation - one of several LCD-based hand-held computers around at the time, although Sharp's mo...

Newbury. Growing mighty with the micros

Newbury Laboratories will forever be associated with the NewBrain - the small, portable micro that was temporarily the choice to be the BBC Microcomputer. However, development w...

BCL's 3000 Series: First choice in the Top Ten

The original BCL - Business Computers Limited - was formed in 1968 as a result of the merger of Systemation Ltd and Business Mechanisation Ltd. This company actually went bust i...

That's it! The VisiSeries from VisiCorp

Any history of the early microcomputer industry would not be complete without a mention of VisiCalc - the first ever "killer app". Not only did VisiCalc create an entirely new ca...

To become the leader in terminals, Televideo had to give you more

TeleVideo was one of several companies - like Intertec - that had started out as terminal manufacturers, in its case in 1975. However unlike most other manufacturers from the 197...

The Atari Video Computer System from Ingersoll

This advert for the Granddaddy of the modern video game - The Atari VCS (Video Computer System), or 2600 - comes in the form of a gate-fold brochure containing a colourful list of...

You can't get a home computer from Texas Instruments under 16K RAM

Here is an advert from the company that did quite a bit to shake up the 1970s calculator market, and in doing so caused Commodore to buy MOS Technology and with it the 6502, which...

Over forty of the world's leading software houses have one thing in common - Transam Microsystems

It's another advert from Transam Microsystems Limited, showing a generic Transam box, that might be a Tuscan, in the "PET on steroids" style that Transam seemed to like, together ...

The IBM Personal Computer, from £2,890

This is a third-party advert for the original Intel 8088-based 5150 IBM PC, the computer which defined the "PC" for a generation or two. In Europe, the Sirius/Victor 9000, which...

When you outgrow your personal computer, that's the time you'll wish you-d bought a DAI

Rather than being the name of a computer made by a staunchly Welsh computer company, the curiously-shaped DAI comes from Belgian company Data Applications International. It had ...

The graphic difference between Atari computers and all the others

The Atari 800 and its cheaper membrane-keyboard sibling the Atari 400 were the result of a project that was kicked off soon after the launch of the legendary Atari 2600 "Woody" ga...

New! Sinclair ZX81 Personal Computer

This is another common advert for Sinclair's ZX81 - the home computer which shipped with only 1K RAM, although Sinclair's BASIC was heavily tokenised and so it wasn't quite as bad...