A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

HP85: It works like a big computer, only it's yours

HP's 85, launched this year, was billed as a "scientific desktop" computer. It was built around the company's own proprietary CPU, running at a surprisingly-slow 0.625MHz. However, it apparently made...

The Poly 88 Microcomputer System - from PolyMorphic

PolyMorphic had started out making expansion cards for the Altair 8800 - the micro launched in January 1975 that as well being the first affordable microcomputer in the modern sense also gave the world...

Silicon Office: Now you can do all the filing with one finger

This is a slightly disturbing advert produced by Commodore in partnership with (or sponsorship of) Bristol Software Factory, for the latter's Silicon Office product. It's along the lines of the "buy...

Micronet 800: Tunes your BBC into a new channel of news, views, facts and fun

Micronet was a popular subsection of the dial-up information system Prestel. Prestel - which shared a technological specification with television Viewdata systems like Ceefax and Oracle - had been launched...

Sinclair ZX Spectrum: Colour and sound... High-Resolution graphics... from only £125!

This advert shows the Mark 1 Spectrum - as shown by the light grey keys - which retailed for £125 (or around [[125|1983]] in [[now]] terms), and in a bit of a Sinclair theme, promised "coming soon" stuff...

At £299 it's very little. At 64K it's very large

The Commodore 64 was the company's replacement for its VIC-20 machine, the limited but popular home computer which was the first to sell more than 1 million units. Designed by a team including Bob Russell,...

If you want flexibility and expandability, then you want the Microtan 65

The Microtan 65 was a single-board computer first built by Tangerine in 1980. Available as either a kit, or ready assembled, Tangerine sold around 10,000 of the 6502-based boards before abandoning it....

CP/M low-cost microcomputer software

Called at the time a "control program for microcomputers", hence the initials, CP/M had become the de-facto operating system for many microcomputers of the mid 1970s, following its launch in 1973. It...

TLF Mini 12: Why buy a micro when you can buy a mini for less!

One of the most popular range of minicomputers in the 1960s and '70s was DEC's PDP - Programmed Data Processor - series of sometimes room-sized machines (once disk units and printers had been added)....

Cromemco Z-2: Meet the most powerful μC system available for dedicated work

Just a few months after Cromemco's Z-1 Z80-based micro was launched comes an update in the shape of the Z-2. Only there doesn't seem to be that much updated - it still runs the same 4MHz Z80 microprocessor,...

Dynabyte builds the Great Memory

Mangling grammar slightly to get in a reference to the Great Pyramids of Giza, and going the extra mile by apparently cutting up one of its memory boards to make an actual pyramid - complete with awesome...

The Heathkit H11 Digital Computer

This advert, for Heathkit's H11 microcomputer, was part of an extravangant sixteen page spread in September 1977's Byte - The Small Systems Journal magazine. It introduced the company's H8 and H11 micros,...

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it with the Noval 760

Noval was founded in the summer of 1976 as a spinout of Gremlin Industries, a manufacturer of electronic arcade games. Its stated mission aim was to supply the market with its own in-house microprocessor...

Rockwell AIM-65: As You Like It!

The AIM-65 - Advanced Interactive Microcomputer - was a development computer based upon MOS Technology's 6502, and as such it was a bit like an improved MOS/Commodore KIM-1. So much so that it actually...

In essence, the best in integrated circuit technology

First released around 1978, Altos is still offering the same machine - the ACS 8000 - in this advert from Altos's exclusive distributors in the UK, Logitek, based in Chorley, Lancashire. Altos is still...