A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

Acorn Electron

This sales brochure, featuring a very Salvador Dali-esque painting including a Rubik's Cube - one of the defining icon of the 1980s - was for the Acorn Electron, sometimes known a...

Four Calculators in One - The Complete Computer!

From back in the day when a calculator could cost a week or two's wages comes a few adverts for Commodore calculators, dating from 1974 to 1976. The first is for Commodore's 410...

You don't need a degree to use a VIC-20 Home Computer - just a degree of common sense

This advert, given that it shows a Mark 1 VIC-20 without the bundled tape drive that soon came long, probably comes from late 1981 - the year that the VIC-20 was launched in the UK...

Thanks to Commodore Computer we now use computer simulation to test heat pump and solar design applications

So says Cristoph Sobotta, R&D Director of Stiebel Eltron, in this US advert. Stiebel Eltron was based in West Germany and came under the purview of Commodore Germany, which was ...

Introducing the Pedigree PET - 8K only £499

The PET was the indirect result of a project by MOS Technology of Pennsylvania to develop its 6500 series of microprocessors, which had been designed as drop-in replacements for M...

"MITS Altair 680 - The Small Wonder of the Micro-World"

This advert for the Altair 680 from MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) appeared in Popular Electronics at the end of 1976, about a year after this computer was fir...

"The Legendary MITS Altair 8800"

Perhaps the most famous early computer is the MITS Altair 8800, from Micro-Instrumentation Telemetry Systems, otherwise known as MITS. This advert is for the "b" revision of the...

If you thought a rugged, professional yet affordable computer didn't exist, think IMSAI 8080

IMSAI - an abbreviation of "Information Management Sciences Associates Incorporated" - was founded in San Leandro, California, in 1973 as a consulting firm providing mainframe ser...

Britain is a nation of PET lovers - the No. 1 computer in the UK

This advert shows the original Chiclet-style 4K PET, retailing for £520 inclusive - about £3,730 in 2025 terms. At around this time, the newer 4000 series - 16K and 32K models, wi...

Introducing the Micronix 80HD - a complete microcomputer on a single board

Single board computers - like the Raspberry Pi - are still quite popular, especially with hobbyists as they're often small and have low power requirements. The fun with this adv...

If you want what's best for your PET, choose Commodore software

This is an advert for Commodore's own software tentacle, which was placed in many Commodore - as well as general computing - magazines of the day, and which ran for at least six m...

New low price for Level 1 BASIC 4K RAM

The TRS-80 was one of the "1977 Trinity" - which also included the Commodore PET and the Apple II. They were the first three modern personal computers - micros that could be taken...

Keen Computers takes you into the future with the Apple II

This is a third-party advert for the Apple II, one of the "1997 Trinity" of computers that changed the landscape of computing. Apple, true to form ever since, was the most expen...

Cromemco System Three - the professional one

With a 4MHz Z80A CPU and an expansive 21 card slots, the System 3 was particulary impressive in being able to address 16MB of memory - a fairly fantastical amount in 1979, where 4...

Tuscan from Transam - Take a step up to your next computer!

Another entry in the "who?" category is this advert for the "Tuscan", from little-known British computer company Transam. It was yet another Z80-based system with an S-100 bus, b...