A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

Butel-Athena: The ideal Small Business System

From another company that appears to have left almost no trace whatsoever - Butel-Comco Limited of Southampton - comes this advert for the Athena, one of a handful of microcomputers that came with a built-in...

Micronetworks introduce PM1000

Here's a seemingly one-off advert for what also seems to be a one-off machine: the PM1000 from Micro Networks, of Pall Mall in London. It's unusual because it's one of only a handful of micros which...

Kontron: Look to tomorrow with the PSIΨ80 Microcomputer Series

It's another advert aimed at OEMs rather than the end user, this time from Kontron Mikrocomputer GmbH of Echning, near Munich in what was West Germany. Demonstrating its target market of engineering,...

4MHz Z80A, 64K RAM, twin 200K disks for £1299

Here is an early advert of Chris Shelton's Sig/Net, launched around March of this year. Shelton, who had once worked for Nascom, had started Shelton Instruments back in 1970, and became well-known for...

The if800 - Colour in your computing

The awkwardly-named if800 from OKI - first launched in 1980 - was on the face of it yet another conventional Z80A-based micro, however it differed from many by coming with an integrated printer - thanks...

Dealers, we'll help you out of the microcomputer jungle

In the days before visual accessibility guidelines existed, and aimed more at potential dealers than the general public, this advert for Altos is actually placed by Microtex of Windsor, which was importing...

The Acorn Econet: the new low-cost interconnecting communication system for computers and peripherals

Here's a rare advert for Acorn's Econet - an affordable network using cheap four- or five-wire cabling (instead of the coaxial cabling found on some other networks) and which could support up to 255 nodes...

5¼" Winchesters - from Hotel Microsystems

Over a year before Hotel Microsystems Limited - later HM Systems - launched its first microcomputer, the Minstrel, comes this advert positioning the company as an importer and parts supplier. The advert...

Some Hard Facts from Haywood

Given the side-bar looking for distributors, this would appear to be a fairly early advert from Haywood Electronic Associates, trading as Haywood. However, the company appeared to have been going since...

The Onyx C8000 Series

Onyx was formed in December 1978 by two former Zilog employees, Robert Marsh and Kip Myers, with some additional input from fellow former Zilog employee Doug Broiles, who had left the CPU company to join...

Apricot Xi: What will they say about this one?

Less than a year before Applied Computer Techniques, or ACT, changed its company name to that of its first computer - Apricot - comes this advert for its Xi model. ACT, which had started out primarily...

Minstrel 68K - A truly sophisticated model that gives the power you need

This crossover advert takes March 1983's Z80-based Minstrel from Hotel Microsystems, replaces the Z80 with a Motorola 68000, rebrands the company as HM Systems and releases the machine as the Minstrel...

Memotech MTX Software: From NewWord to Newton to Nemo

Here's an attempt by Memotech to advertise itself as a software company, and to position its MTX512 as a dedicated word processing system - an approach that just a few years before had resulted in some...

If you are thinking of buying more than one PC - think again

It's another all-British (for a definition ignoring the fact that most of the chips came from the Far East or the US) multi-user system, this time from Jarogate of Brixton in London, for its MP5 CP/M...

SuperStar Multi-User System is Just Right

Bromcom - initially known as Bromley Computer Consultancy Ltd - launched its SuperStar multi-user system at the beginning of 1984. Running a 16-bit host processor with the company's own IMPOS operating...