A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

Introducing the Atari XL Home Computers

Commodore had already run adverts for the VIC-20 with the celebrity endorsement of William Shatner and game-show host Henry Morgan in the US, and had used legendary 70s comedian R...

As your experience grows, so can your Atari 600XL

The 600XL was one of two computers launched by Atari - the other being the 800XL - at the summer 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. It was available in the UK in quantit...

It's lonely at the top: Tulip System 1 of Compudata

Founded in 1979 as Compudata, Tulip Computers is worth a mention for a couple of reasons. Firstly, when Exidy stopped manufacturing the Sorceror micro that Compudata had been im...

Camputers: New 96 and Laureate

Published only a few months before the company went bust in the summer of 1984, this advert doesn't really say anything about why you would want to buy either of the machines - th...

Nascom Imp plain paper printer - boxed and built for only £325

1980 was perhaps the year of the rise of the printer, but at the time these were still very much in the realms of "expensive" - much like floppy disk drives before them, where the ...

Vector Graphic's microcomputer: What's in it for you?

Vector Graphic's Memorite "turn-key" microcomputer system (which meant "turn it on and it's ready") is an early entry in a curious sideline of the micro industry - that of the com...

AMX Mouse - Points the way

Pre-dating the launch of home computers that came with and were optimised for mice - such as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST - there was a phase of "retro fitting" the fashionabl...

Triton One-Board Computer

The Triton one-board computer started life jointly sponsored by Transam and Electronics Today International (ETI), as a sort of cross-marketing collaboration. Transam provided t...

Is the information revolution passing you by? Nightingale - The Modem

The mid-1980s - 1984 to 1986 in particular - were notable for the destruction that swept through the microcomputer industry, with companies like Dragon Data, Camputers, Enterprise...

Get things going - with the Philips portable P2000C

The spec of this machine makes it seem almost like an update to 1984's KayPro, with a similar 9" green-screen monitor and 5¼" floppies - in this version capable of storing up to 6...

It does accounts, projections, wordprocessing and 180mph

Only months after Amstrad had released the CPC 664, it was back with an entry in the battle-du-jour which by late summer of 1985 was all about 128K micros. Whilst not really off...

Epson HX-20: It could mean the end of the rubber duck as we know it

From the time when the only colours allowed in anyone's decorative colour scheme were black, red and grey comes this advert from Epson. It's perhaps one of the more irresponsibl...

There's one thing about this MSX that isn't quite standard - the price tag

This entry in the MSX hall-of-fame is slightly unusual in that GoldStar is not a Japanese company, as nearly all MSX builders were, but Korean. With a style that looks as if it ...

Samurai - your powerful ally

Despite fears of an imminent Japanese invasion going right back to almost the start of the Personal Computer revolution, not much really happened until Microsoft-sponsored Japanes...

The home computer that means business - Amstrad CPC664

When interviewed about the upcoming Atari ST, former Commodore founder and all-round legend Jack Tramiel said "Home computer? I never heard of it - I make personal computers". I...