1983 adverts

Computerise without compromise: Quantum QM 2000

This is short-lived advert from Leeds-based Quantum Computer Systems Limited, for its new all-British Quantum 2000 microcomputer, where the definition of "all British" is somewhat flexible, given that...

Micro-Professor MPF-II: The 64K Computer That Spans Generations

First launched in 1982, the Micro-Professor MPF-II was Multitech Corporation's update to its earlier MPF1 machine, although this time it was aimed more at the home and Apple II market than at developers....

CAL Personal Computer: Bet you wish you were called IBM

It's sometimes mistakenly given that the name of the intelligent computer in 2001 - HAL - is a dig at IBM, as it's every letter of that company's acronym shifted down one in the alphabet. This is denied...

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 6509 CPU and an option of...

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 collaboration with the BBC, which...

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 advert is that whilst a...

Commodore VIC-20 - Let Commodore expand your horizons

Even though the Commodore 64 had been launched the year before, the VIC-20 was still shifting units - it would end up selling over 2.5 million before it was discontinued in 1985, mostly thanks to being...

Introducing the Tandy Micro Executive Workstation

Proving that it's possible to stretch out a model name to any possible extreme, comes the "Micro Executive Work Station" (MEWS), otherwise known as the TRS-80 Model 100 - the TRS-80 being a 1977-vintage...

Rainbow 100 - It's The Complete System for Complete Solutions

No collection of adverts about the early computer industry would be complete without at least one featuring Digital - otherwise known as Digital Equipment Corporation or DEC. This was the company that...

COMX-35 - the new world in family microcomputers

Designed in the Netherlands by Noxon AB and produced by the Hong Kong-based company COMX World Operations Limited - a trading-name of Video Technology - the little-known COMX-35 was if nothing else unusual...

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 as safe, reliable company...

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, however, appear to start out...

Cifer: When a microprocessor costs £3, why make do with one?

The Series 1, from Wiltshire-based Cifer - a company which had been "at the forefront of computer technology for over ten years" and which had a "bread and butter business in terminals" and a turnover...

Hyperion - The world's most powerful portable computer

Sadly, this particular Gulfstream was nothing to do with the rarified world of luxury executive jets but was rather more prosaically a subsidiary of Canadian company Bytec. The Hyperion portable was...

Haywood: When the British make something, it's really something

It's tempting with 20/20 hindsight to giggle about bespoke single-task machines like the oddly-named Haywood 9000 Composite in the light of the all-purpose IBM Micro, which dawned at the end of 1981....