A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

Horizon - The complete computer. Look to the North Star Horizon

The North Star Horizon might be filed under the "who or what?" category of computers, however judging by the regularity of the company's adverts in magazines of the day it was ar...

Cromemco Z-1: This is the industry's most powerful microcomputer

This advert is for a Z80-based machine on an S-100 bus, similar in form to many of the computers of the time such as the Intel-based IMSAI 8080, which is not surprising as it was ...

Experience the excitement of owning the finest personal computer - IMSAI 8080

This is another advert for the IMSAI 8080, as used by Matthew Broderick's character David Lightman in the classic nerd-film "War Games". At least when this advert came out the mac...

Now $2750 - America's lowest-priced personal computer system with color graphics

The Compucolor 8001 was an Intel 8080-based personal computer which upped the ante compared to other machines like the Cromemco and the IMSAI 8080 by having a real keyboard, 34 I/...

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, ...

New TRS-80 Model 4 - from Tandy

Proving that sometimes the same model can live on seemingly for ever, at least in name, is this advert for the TRS-80 Model 4. The original TRS-80, one of the "1977 Trinity", had...

With Aquarius you won't get left behind

Very much an also-ran in the home/personal computer race comes this advert for a Mattel Aquarius - a Z80-based unit with a chiclet keyboard built for Mattel by Far East-based Rado...

Oric-1 16K and 48K Micros

The Oric was aimed at the Sinclair Spectrum market - the models and prices were similar, and even the graphics in the advert alluded to the Spectrum's product design. It's nearly...

Unique in concept - the home computer that grows as you do!

The Acorn Atom was a 6502-based 8-bit computer that in its basic version managed to pack even less RAM than the VIC-20: 2K compared to 3.5K. However, it was very modular and so ...

Why the Sinclair ZX80 is Britain's best selling computer

Just before the release of the ZX81 comes this advert for the ZX80, available in kit form for only £80, or £500 in 2025. Somewhat amusingly it claims to be "a really powerful, f...

Discover the full professional power of Hewlett-Packard's personal computer

Hewlett-Packard, which like Commodore, TI and Tandy also had a line in calculators, had launched its HP-85 micro at the beginning of 1980, with the machine even originating from t...

The Commodore PET offers you a safe passage through the primeval swamp of computerisation

This advert had a point - there were hundreds of different manufactures around at this point all producing different systems with different CPUs on different architectures, and ma...

Buy a wordprocessor for under £3,500 - and get a microcomputer for free

Well, perhaps software was a bit more expensive in the early 80s, but word processing software for £3,500 (or £18,700 in 2025 terms) seems a little steep. However, that's what t...

Astronaut quality. Everyday simplicity. The HP-41C. £184

Hewlett-Packard, like Commodore in the 1970s, was also a calculator manufacturer - although Commodore had bailed out of that market the year before, in 1981. This particular mod...

Nascom 3 - from Lucas Logic

Perhaps implausibly from the company better known for car parts - belts, bulbs and oil filters and so on - comes the Nascom 3, courtesy of Lucas Logic. Lucas had bought Nascom ...