A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

Communications Engineered: The Bendix G-20 Computer System

Hot on the heels of Bendix's valve-based G-15 computer came the G-20, built with transistorised modules. It had memory comprising 32,000 32-bit words - analogous to 128K - with a 6μsec cycle time - very...

Commodore Plus/4: Clean up your study once and for all

Here's a nice advert showing Commodore's Plus/4 as some sort of vacuum cleaner, sucking up a load of invoices, receipts and a tax return. There are some great 80s names in the in-tray, including the...

IBM System/360: Getting smaller... thinking bigger

This is a great advert which perfectly encapsulates the evolution of electronics in one photo. It shows what is effectively the same functional component and how it has evolved over time: the board...

It's the same old Apple II, except for the front, back and inside

The Apple III, which had been released three years before in 1980, had been a relative failure, shifting only 65,000 units before it was canned, so the venerable Apple II line was continued with this...

/ability - It Comes Naturally With The Altair 8800b

This is an advert for the later-model Intel 8080-based Altair 8800b, showing several system boards rising out of its chassis. Released in June 1976, it's an update to the original 8800 which had launched...

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...

The Jupiter Ace: Clever enough for Forth, dumb enough to sell for £90

The Jupiter Ace, launched in August 1982, was an unusual entry into the canon of early 1980s British home computers. Although it was Yet Another Z80 Machine, it was different in its choice of Forth as...

ZX Spectrum - 16K or 48K RAM from only £125!

This advert is part of an impressive four-page spread that appeared early in 1983 for the Sinclair Spectrum, launched at the end of April 1982 but which took eight weeks until first deliveries actually...

If it isn't Shugart, it isn't Minifloppy

The apocryphal story tells of a meeting in a restaurant with a customer who complained that the 8" floppy drives of the day were just too big for the smaller "personal computers" that had been appearing...

Sol. The small computer that won't fence you in

An interesting advert, nicely shot on a dried lake somewhere in the American south west, that's quite honest, for a change, about the fact that it's not particularly cheap and which disparages the often...

Why Apple II is the world's best selling personal computer

According to The Register, Apple has long since possessed an alternative view of reality, with Steve Jobs being known as "Old Reality Distortion Field, because when he appeared, facts became fallacies...

PerSci delivers the Dual-Headed Diskette Drive

Peripheral Sciences - or PerSci - with its dual-headed dual-floppy unit, was going up against companies like Shugart which had just introduced the 5¼" floppy. Ignoring their size, these huge 8" drives...

Smoke Signal Broadcasting: Hail to the Chieftain

Founded in 1976 as a supplier of plug-in boards for SWTPC's 6800 micro, Smoke Signal Broadcasting is a bit of an obscure entry in the canon of early computing. The machine in the advert - The Chieftain...

The Sharp MZ-80 Computer System - Now Available On Earth

This advert from Sharp continues the company's long-running theme which implies some sort of extra-terrestrial origin for its computer. This particular micro, which was first launched in Japan as a...

Seeing is believing: ACT Sirius 1

This advert for the ACT Sirius 1 - a machine designed by 6502 and Commodore PET legend Chuck Peddle, and of which Peddle said "Eats Apples and **cks PETs" - appeared around twelve months before the IBM...