A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

RAIR
June 1983
RAIR: When it's time to stop playing games and get down to business
RAIR by name and rare by nature, if the lack of information about either the machine or the company (apart from at oldcomputers.com) is anything to go by. The company did, howev...

Digital
June 1983
Just How Big a Difference is there Between Digital and Other Personal Computer Manufacturers?
This advert is primarily worth including because it has a nice picture of the Grand Canyon in the background. It's not for any particular machine, rather it's to advertise DEC a...

Dragon Data
September 1982
Dragon: Fire Your Imagination
This is a nice A5 landscape booklet, produced as sales material for the Dragon 32 probably around the time that the Dragon was released in August 1982. The Dragon 32 was first a...

Qume
August 1983
Qume - A New Range of Video Terminals
Whilst the world of small-business and home computers was in a raging turmoil with hundreds of random machines coming and going, one thing remained a constant - the world of the t...

Commodore
17th November 1982
Your starter for £150 - the Commodore VIC-20
Commodore was fairly unconventional in its approach to selling computers: rather than just using the traditional tech outlets like Radio Shack, or electronics and nerd magazines, ...

Commodore
June 1983
Commodore 700: It's a picture - and it's worth a thousand words
With a case popularly believed to have been designed by Ferdinand Porsche, but which was actually designed by Commodore's regular industrial designer Ira Velinsky, an on-board 650...

Commodore
1982
There's a Commodore Computer for every person, purpose and pocketbook
This advert, from Practical Computing, shows Commodore's range of computers and printers in the hands of archetypal business suits and the nuclear family. It includes the recently-...

Commodore
1982
Ronnie Barker and the Commodore PET Adverts
At the same time as William "Captain Kirk" Shatner was advertising for Commodore in the US, the UK saw TV's Ronnie Barker pressed in to service, with various nods towards Barker's...

Acorn
June 1983
A two-minute operation turns your BBC Micro into the heart of a word-processor
Although didn't do much outside its home market, the Acorn BBC Micro Model B was quite a big thing in the UK. Its popularity in the UK was largely thanks to a unique collaboratio...

Commodore
1st September 1981
The Commodore Computer Range Price List
This advert is a sales-channel price list for later-model Commodore PET computers. Prices ranged from £632.50 for the entry-level 16K 40-column 12" screen PET 4016 (about £3,390 ...

Commodore
7th October 1979
Chessmate Electronic Chess Opponent - a player you'll find hard to beat at a price that's impossible to beat
As well as the PET/CBM range of computers and the continuation of the calculator line, which had survived the Calculator Wars of the mid 1970s, Commodore wasn't averse to putting ...

Acorn
1983
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...

Commodore
1974
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...

Commodore
December 1981
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 U...

Commodore
1981
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 ...