A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

For impartial advice on which computer to buy, don't ask a salesman. Ask a computer

This is one of those implausible ads where the reader is expected to believe that Olivetti really programmed a bunch of computers in order to determine which, based on specs and p...

The first Arabic personal computer in the world

This is an interesting advert for what was billed as the first ever Arabic personal computer in the world - a modified version of Sinclair's ZX81. In an era when English-derived...

Apricot - the 4th generation personal computer

ACT - Applied Computer Techniques - of Dudley, near Birmingham, had been set up in 1965 as a time-sharing bureau. In then diversified into reselling office equipment and produci...

Can your computer keep pace with the Amstrad PC2286?

Several years after Amstrad had battered through the UK home and small-business microcomputer industry with its range of keenly-priced machines, it was still going, here offering ...

Enterprise - a 16 bit business computer from only £2,300

Data General was a minicomputer manufacturer which was established in 1968 by Edson de Castro, the former manager of DEC's PDP-8 program. A year later it released the Nova minico...

The computer with the story!

It may have had a story to tell, but it seems to be a fairly conventional one, being as it was a 64K CP/M luggable, complete with a built-in carry handle. On the upside, it did h...

ComX 35 - the new world in family microcomputers

Designed in the Netherlands by Noxon AB and produced by the Hong Kong-based company COMX World Operations Limited - a trading-name of Video Technology - the little-known ComX 35 w...

I'm happy and proud to present your friendly IBM personal computer

The IBM PC, a.k.a 5150 had been launched in the US in 1981, but had only been unofficially available in the UK via the grey import market since the summer of 1982. It was being ...

The Company Computer vs. the Personal Computer

1983 had been the year of Ethernet, with 3Com breaking cover as the first commercial manufacturer, with its network card appearing in January on the Altos micro. At the time it ...

Unicorn - Five new channels for the BBC. Here's the full programme.

A few months before the launch of Torch's Graduate - an attempt at a complete IBM PC "plug-in module" for the BBC - comes the Unicorn. This was a range of what were effectively ...

GENIE - able

Here's a simple advert from Lowe Computers - formerly Lowe Electronics - the sole UK importers of the Genie series of computers, built by enigmatic Hong Kong company EACA and whic...

Galaxy 2 Computer System - Whatever requirements you have

This advert for the British-made Galaxy 2, from Gemini Microcomputers of Amersham, Buckinghamshire, seemed to have been around for ever - in fact the spec of twin Z80A processors ...

Free software, only £225

Looking much like its contemporary - the Prestel adapter - and with the same BBC Micro case-matching shape, Acorn's new Teletext adapter was perhaps better value as at least the c...

All microcomputers are made for tomorrow. But what about the day after?

Here's another also-ran in the micro stakes from yet another typewriter company - Olympia International. The curiously-named "People" was an 8086-based machine that ran either C...

The battle is over: MS-DOS has become the dominant 16-bit operating system

There's nothing like a bit of gloating, and this advert certainly has it in spades, featuring as it does a set of quotes about how Microsoft's MS-DOS had killed off CP/M to become...