A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

Dealers, we'll help you out of the microcomputer jungle

In the days before visual accessibility guidelines existed, and aimed more at potential dealers than the general public, this advert for Altos is actually placed by Microtex of Windsor, which was importing...

The Acorn Econet: the new low-cost interconnecting communication system for computers and peripherals

Here's a rare advert for Acorn's Econet - an affordable network using cheap four- or five-wire cabling (instead of the coaxial cabling found on some other networks) and which could support up to 255 nodes...

5¼" Winchesters - from Hotel Microsystems

Over a year before Hotel Microsystems Limited - later HM Systems - launched its first microcomputer, the Minstrel, comes this advert positioning the company as an importer and parts supplier. The advert...

Some Hard Facts from Haywood

Given the side-bar looking for distributors, this would appear to be a fairly early advert from Haywood Electronic Associates, trading as Haywood. However, the company appeared to have been going since...

The Onyx C8000 Series

Onyx was formed in December 1978 by two former Zilog employees, Robert Marsh and Kip Myers, with some additional input from fellow former Zilog employee Doug Broiles, who had left the CPU company to join...

Apricot Xi: What will they say about this one?

Less than a year before Applied Computer Techniques, or ACT, changed its company name to that of its first computer - Apricot - comes this advert for its Xi model. ACT, which had started out primarily...

Minstrel 68K - A truly sophisticated model that gives the power you need

This crossover advert takes March 1983's Z80-based Minstrel from Hotel Microsystems, replaces the Z80 with a Motorola 68000, rebrands the company as HM Systems and releases the machine as the Minstrel...

Memotech MTX Software: From NewWord to Newton to Nemo

Here's an attempt by Memotech to advertise itself as a software company, and to position its MTX512 as a dedicated word processing system - an approach that just a few years before had resulted in some...

If you are thinking of buying more than one PC - think again

It's another all-British (for a definition ignoring the fact that most of the chips came from the Far East or the US) multi-user system, this time from Jarogate of Brixton in London, for its MP5 CP/M...

SuperStar Multi-User System is Just Right

Bromcom - initially known as Bromley Computer Consultancy Ltd - launched its SuperStar multi-user system at the beginning of 1984. Running a 16-bit host processor with the company's own IMPOS operating...

Compact System for Professionals

Once mentioned in Parliament as one of only two British computer manufacturers on the government's Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency list of approved suppliers to have also been members of...

The affordable power source in your PC to run today's games.

Intel didn't do a huge amount of advertising, seeming to prefer to allow word-of-mouth, or inertia, to do its selling. In the early 1970s, it had the hobbyist and microcomputer market - such as it was...

Britain can still find an extra byte

Here's an advert from the curiously-named Computer Ancilliaries Limited, for what at first appear to be two of its machines - the British-built Caltext Word Processor and the Caltext Micro - but which...

CAL Personal Computer: Bet you wish you were called IBM

It's sometimes mistakenly given that the name of the intelligent computer in 2001 - HAL - is a dig at IBM, as it's every letter of that company's acronym shifted down one in the alphabet. This is denied...

Durango: See our intelligent little space conqueror and you'll know why he's green

This advert, which features a green Mekon - the alien character from British 1950s comic Dan Dare - is for one of the least computer-ey micros in the entire collection: the Durango 700, distributed in...