1983 adverts

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...

RAIR: The box is not always black

This advert from RAIR shows the company's credentials as an OEM supplier, with the its original "Black Box" - shown on the bottom - also showing up as the Innsite micro, Ryman business computer, and most...

What can 16 CP/M user have in common?

This advert almost didn't make it in as it's one of those text-heavy layouts with not much apparently going on. However, it's worth an entry because it's for a microcomputer which took the idea of "multi-processor"...

Research Machines: Graphics machine

There weren't many constants during the microcomputer explosion, but if there was one it was possibly this: Research Machines' 380Z. First launched in 1977, it was still going here in 1983, and would...

Three out of every four computers going into schools are BBC Micros

Acorn churned out a lot of adverts around this time which were broadly similar: a BBC Micro doing something, with reams of text explaining it. This one - whilst even more wordy than usual - is interesting...

Concurrent CP/M - Multiplies the power of your microcomputer

Digital Research had been set up in 1976 to capitalise on the popularity of Gary Kildall's CP/M operating system - the popular and de-facto standard OS for most serious microcomputers during the 1970s....

Evolution. Revolution.

With Apple's famous "reality distortion field" in full effect with the the oft-made but incorrect claim that Apple invented the personal computer, and that since the release of the Apple II the world...

Fifteen 80-Bus solutions

Gemini Microcomputers had been founded by John Marshall towards the end of 1980 after his previous company - Nascom/Lucas - had called in the receivers. Since its founding, Nascom had produced the Nascom...

EuroMicro's answer to high-performance and flexibility

EuroMicro Ltd of north London, apparently a UK offshoot of EuroMicro Inc, is another one of those value-added reseller companies that seems to have left no trace. It first appeared in July 1982, when...

CompuStar: Tough to outgrow

Here's a nice advert for InterTec's CompuStar, which makes it look like the terminal-looking thing in the foreground is the most important part of the system. In this case, it was, sort of, which was...

If you want to help with research, buy someone else's computer

At almost the anatomically complete-opposite end of the scale to Commodore's Maureen the Elephant comes this advert featuring cute guinea pigs, from little-known Globe Business Machines Ltd, which seems...

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 Jupiter Ace: Clever enough for Forth, dumb enough to sell for £90

The Jupiter Ace, launched in August 1982, was an unusual entry into the canon of early 1980s British home computers. Although it was Yet Another Z80 Machine, it was different in its choice of Forth as...

Are you the QX-10 that undertakes financial modelling, stock control, book-keeping...?

This advert is for the somewhat-flawed Epson QX-10, a machine aimed at the IBM/Sirius market and which was launched less than two months after Epson's previous HX-20 portable. The QX-10 was a Zilog Z80-based...

The Ultimate - Zenith Data Systems Z-100

One of a myriad of IBM-PC-like machines around during this era, although pitched more as an alternative than a compatible machine, the Z-100 was actually the pre-built version of Heathkit's H100 kit computer...