A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

The Research Machines' 380Z - A unique tool for research and education

From its launch in 1977 through to mid 1982, Research Machines Limited, often abbreviated to RML or RM, seemed to be selling the same one machine - a Z80-based system called the 3...

A computer can get awfully bored when it can't communicate!

Heathkit was another of those companies better known for its consumer and technical electronics, but which jumped in to the market opened up by the MITS Altair 8800. This advert...

IMSAI introduces the PCS-80/30 Integrated Video Computer

This looks a lot like the "portable" version of the Commodore 64 - the SX-64 - that would appear on the scene some seven years later, and as such was a similar early attempt, like...

Your computer system needn't cost a fortune - SWTPC 6800

South Western Technical Products Corporation started out as a company producing kits of the projects often printed in electronics magazines of the late 60s and 70s, before branchi...

£79.99 all in: the Commodore Communications Modem

Way before the masses discovered the joys of the Internet (as in after 1995), there existed a vibrant dial-up community using Bulletin Boards and infotext/Viewdata services like P...

Commodore 64: It's not how much you pay, it's how much you get

In the era of the IBM PC, this Commodore advert compares the price and features of the Commodore 64 and the IBM PCJr. Known by IBM's codename of the "Peanut", the Junior was nev...

At last, the business PC you can welcome like an old friend

Not to be left out in the stampede for IBM PCs and their compatible ilk (it's four years since the IBM PC launched), comes this offering from Commodore for its version. This par...

The Commodore 128. When you look at the facts, they do seem to weigh rather heavily in our favour.

The 128 was Commodore's last 8-bit computer and was released in 1985, although news of the 128 started appearing at the end of 1984, with Popular Computing Weekly saying that "Com...

Buy one of these Commodore peripherals for £199.99 and get a Seiko RC-1000 free!

It's another advert depicting the mid-1980s rage-du-jour of the "wrist terminal", in the form of the Seiko RC-1000 (also seen here). Smart watches or wearables seem to pop up ev...

The greatest breakthrough in wrist technology since Seiko introduced quartz

Not actually an advert for a computer, per se, but an interesting reflection of what was all the rage at the time: multi-function "James Bond"-style watches. The Seiko RC1000 is...

The Commodore 64. Under $600

It's another Commodore advert, from August 1983, playing to Jack Tramiel's famous adage "Computers for the masses, not the classes". The origin of this famous quote dates back to...

The New Electronic Wonderland: Atari VCS/2600

Although the Fairchild "Channel F" had pioneered the idea of a video-game console which used generic microprocessors and plug-in cartridges - as opposed to the older systems which...

The $149.95 Personal Computer: Introducing the Sinclair ZX81

Before Sinclair cut a deal with US watch-manufacturer Timex to distributes the ZX81 in the US as the Timex Sinclair 1000 or 1500, it was available in its original "Sinclair ZX81" ...

The Remarkable SV-318 Personal Computer

The Spectravideo SV-318 was a Zilog Z80A-based computer with 32K RAM and Microsoft BASIC, which had been the de-facto standard on pretty much every computer since the MITS Altair ...

Apple II: The Managing Director's Personal Computer

It's another advert for the Apple II, the 6502-based computer that might not have made it - as it was over twice the price of its compatriots - had it not been for the advent of V...