A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

New from Tangerine Computer Systems - the Microtan 65

Tangerine had been started in 1978 by Paul Johnson - who after school in Colchester went on to earn a PhD in high-speed analogue-to-digital converters at Bradford University - and a couple of friends...

The cheapest most advanced business Microcomputer

Marketed as the ACT Series 800 and built by Computhink of California, where it was known as the Minimax, the ACT 800 was ACT's first micro and came some 15 years after the company's 1965 founding by Roger...

Sig/Net For a growing business

Shelton Instruments Limited, of White Lion Street near Angel Tube Station in London's Islington, had been started back in 1970 by Chris Shelton, who ended up working a stint at Nascom - once the UK's...

Dynabyte - the Business Computer System your customers can afford

If nothing else proved the need for the likes of Commodore's Jack Tramiel or Sinclair's eponymous Clive to come along and build micros that normal people could afford to buy, it must the opening gambit...

If only he'd bought a Commodore computer

The Commodore 700, and its cheaper sibling the 500, were short-lived entrants in Commodore's business range. Confusingly named as the B128, B256 or CBM 128/256-80 in the US or the 700 series in Europe,...

American take-away

The first company to produce a clone of IBM's PC BIOS had been Columbia, but the second - and the first to do it legally - was Compaq, a company set up in 1982 and whose first product was this, the Compaq...

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 performance, was the best...

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 programming languages...

Apricot - the 4th generation personal computer

ACT - Applied Computer Techniques - of Dudley, near Birmingham, was set up in 1965 as a mainframe accounting bureau by Roger Foster. Foster had left Wolverhampton Grammar School in 1957 before qualifying...

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 an Intel 80286-based...

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 minicomputer, which was the...

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 have a particularly large...

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 was if nothing else unusual...

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 imported by companies...

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 was considered a risky...