1982 adverts

Omninet: The Corvus Connection

Corvus was founded in 1979 with a few million dollars of venture-capital seed money in order to build disk drives for Apple. However, as disk drives were often more expensive than the computers they...

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 uncommon for companies to...

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 microcomputer than perhaps Sharp's...

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 model looks a little more...

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 was slow, production was...

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 in 1974 but was ressurected...

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 category of software, but...

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 1970s, it actually managed...

Dynabyte 5000. The system that grows with you

The Metrotech Dynabyte 5000 was the result of a collaboration between the UK-based technology company Metrotech Limited - part of the same Grand Metropolitan Group that once owned Burger King - and the...

At Commodore, we leave you no choice

Here's another straightforward advert from Commodore, which was by far the most prolific of all computer companies if measured by the variety of adverts generated. Shown in this advert is the range of...

Gemini Multiboard - the Logical Route

Here's an unusually-fun advert for Gemini's multiboard collection, showing a cheapskate route, an esoteric route to "Sky High Prices Inc", and, naturally, the Logical Route from the 80-Bus Station, via...

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 40 or so game cartridges,...

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 led to the Commodore...

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 with a scattering of...

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 used the same 8088 CPU,...