A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

What else would I do with a GEC Dragon 64?

This advert appears during the phase of Dragon Data's history when it was being managed by GEC (General Electric Company) - the British satellites-to-defense-to-home-electronics b...

Sord M5: At last, a home computer that improves with age

It's another advert for the Sord M5, known in the UK as the CGL M5, on account of its distributor. It ran a Zilog Z80A, along with the same video chip as the MSX standard, making...

The New Sinclair QL - There's no comparison chart because there's no comparison!

The Sinclar QL, or "Quantum Leap", also known internally to Sinclair Research as the ZX83, was Sinclair's first and only computer based upon the Motorola 68008. The 68008 was a ve...

The new Mitsubishi MSX computers

Mitsubishi - a Japanese company perhaps more famous for heavy plant like diggers and bulldozers, as well as cars and home electronics - was one of the wave of mostly-Japanese manu...

Amstrad's new CPC 464 comes with plenty of free plugs

Harking back to the early all-in-one computers of the late 1970s - not least the very first, 1977's Commodore's PET with its built-in cassette player - comes Alan Michael Sugar Tr...

Important notice to all micro-computer purchasers: The BBC Micro-computer system

This is perhaps the advert that really started it all for Acorn, at least in terms of the Acorn Proton, a.k.a. the BBC Micro. It announced the upcoming availability of the new BB...

Equinox 100: When you put it together, it's really together

For those moments when the computer's playing up and there's clearly nothing better to do than hit the bottle comes this advert for the Equinox 100, made by Parasitic Engineering ...

Altos presents a new standard in quality and reliability - Altos ACS8000

This is an advert for the Altos "Sun Series" ACS8000, made by Walsh Avenue, Santa Clara, California-based Altos Computer Systems. Altos was founded at the end of 1977 by David Ja...

Now there are at least 102K more reasons to buy the Heathkit H8 - the WH17 Floppy!

This is a straightforward ad from popular electronics-kit manufacturers Heath, trading as Heathkit Computers of Benton Harbor Michigan. Heathkit's H8, an Intel 8080A-based machi...

Announcing the IMSAI VDP-40 - Microcomputer System Solution

Here is an advert for IMSAI's less well-known VDP-40, the VDP bit standing for "Video Data Processing", whilst IMSAI was a contraction of IMS Associates, Inc, itself standing for ...

Another Heathkit Color TV Breakthrough... The world's only computerized TV system

This is a great advert for the space-faring TV-as-furniture model GR-2001 television from Heathkit, the electronics kits and projects company which joined the burgeoning computer ...

SWTPC: Need hardcopy? How about pictures?

This is an early advert from SWTPC, the San Antonio, Texas, company that had been founded in 1967 out of the earlier Daniel E Meyer Company business that specialised in selling el...

Buy Nascom 2 Now and get a free 16K RAM board

The Nascom 2 was one of a range of kits produced by UK computer manufacturer Nascom, a company founded by John Marshall and Kerr Borland. The previous model, the Nascom 1, had b...

Now. The Perfect Microcomputer: Vector 1 - it's a two-touch affair

Founded in November 1976, it didn't take long for Vector Graphic to go from making 8K memory cards to complete systems, as shown by this advert from July 1977. The Vector 1 was the...

The Alpha Micro Computer: Multi-user, Multi-tasking, Timesharing, Memory Management

Alpha Microsystems Inc, more normally known as Alpha Micro, was founded in Costa Mesa, California, in 1977. The multi-user AM 100 series featured in the advert was its first micro...