A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

Commodore's philosophy: Computer PET 2001

This is part of an eight-page A5 booklet produced for the launch of the Commodore PET in the UK, a machine which made its debut at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show in January 1977, months before...

In a class on its own: Opus PC II

Opus was another of those companies, like Memotech, that had started out as a technology supplies company, selling things like the Discovery system for the Spectrum, which combined a 3.5" disk drive and...

From a Single Comart Workstation... The Mighty Comart System Grows

This is another entry in the IBM-alike pantheon, or IBMulators as PRAC liked to call clones in the mid 1980s, from one of several companies of the time that started out as re-sellers or importers. Comart...

The ITT 2020 Micro-computer system: No, this is not a typewriter!

The ITT 2020's claim to fame is that it was the first officially-licenced Apple II Plus clone made specifically for the European market. Despite being a clone, it differed in a few important ways, the...

The Wren Executive: Carry the company in your hand, not on your shoulders

Billed as a portable, but really just a luggable along the lines of the much earlier IMSAI PCS-80/30 from 1978 or the more contemporary KayPro, the Wren was built by Thorn/EMI, a company which was also...

Tandata Tm 200: Open up a new world of communications to your micro

Tandata Design Consultants formed out of Tangerine, the makers of the Microtan 65, as a designer and manufacturer of modems and communications equipment, with the top end of its modem range selling for...

The answer is an Apricot from ComputerWorld

Applied Computer Techniques - ACT - had previously been importing the Chuck Peddle-designed Victor 9000, which was known as the ACT Sirius in the UK, and before that it was a supplier of Commodore PET...

The new Epson PC Plus. It makes others look like PC Plod

This is yet another entry in the pantheon of almost-identical beige boxes that came to define the industry for years. It's the hard-disk-based update of Epson's previous and unimaginatively-named Epson...

Compatible with you know who, priced as only we know how

At £449 ([[449|1987]] in [[now]]) Amstrad wasn't wrong, although that was for the machine which only had a single floppy. The more useful version with a 10MB hard disc drive retailed at only £920 including...

The best thing next to a BBC Micro

Available at around the same time as Torch's "Graduate", Torch's Z80-based ZEP100 was considered by Personal Computer News to be by far the better system out of the two for BBC Micro uses hoping to get...

Laskys - Win a Peugeot 205 GT

Here's another advert for non-computer company Laskys, stalwart of the micro revolution on the High Streets of the UK for several years. Laskys adverts often represent the zeitgeist of microcomputers,...

If it weren't a handheld computer, it would be an XJS juggernaut

Psion had started out in 1980 as a producer of software for Sinclair's ZX80 - although founder David Potter's first output had been some utilities for Acorn's Atom - and went on to produce many Sinclair...

ZX Interface 2 - the new ROM cartridge and joystick interface

The Interface 2 was an update to the existing Interface 1 (formerly known as the ZX Expansion Module), a device required in tandem with the concurrently-launched Microdrive, which was finally available...

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 Ronnie Barker in the UK....

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 quantity by the end of the year...