1982 adverts

U-Net: Professional-standard micronetwork software

U-Microcomputers, or more commonly U-Micro, started out in the late 1970s as the factory-appointed distributor of Ohio Scientific's range of machines for the north and midlands regions of the UK. Products...

The complete multi-purpose, multi-terminal desktop computer system for business

After several years selling the same ACS 8000 system, Altos is finally out with something new: the Series 5. And whilst one of the company's earliest adverts featured its micro stuck on a table with...

SWTPC Computer Systems: Nothing beats experience

This three-page advert, which is great for viewers in dark mode but which is not so good for the consumption of black printing ink, shows that Southwest Technical Products (Computers) Company Ltd was...

Another successful deal completed while Genie III looks after your business

Adverts for microcomputers in this era can be broadly grouped into three or four types: a micro sitting on a table surrounded by something incongruous like the family silver, a micro in an office being...

Expand your Horizons

With an odd mixture of tech and Monty Python visuals, here's an advert from Hotel Microsystems, the company that would become HM Systems, which clearly hints at HM's change of direction which would lead...

Designed for expanding minds

This advert for the Transam Tuscan S100 curiously features product photos of the older Tuscan before it was rebranded. However, at least it manages to be one of the few adverts for the machine where...

Decision 1 - the only machine that runs almost everything

George Morrow - the founder of Morrow Designs - was born in 1934 and earned a degree in physics from Stanford before going on to do a master's in mathematics at the University of Oklahoma. He became...

SuperBrain II: Summa Cum Laude!

This advert appears to be about the only one that Intertec ever did itself that actually features its SuperBrain micro, which was fairly omnipresent from its launch in 1979 and for a large chunk of the...

The office information centre

Tandy had announced its "bigger brother" follow-up to the 1977 Model I at the end of 1979, but wasn't initially expecting to ship until April of the following year, whilst as this advert shows the machine...

The 16-bit micro with 8-bit compatibility

Zenith Data Systems - the company formed after Zenith Radio Corporation had bought the Heath company from Schlumberger in early 1980 - is back with a couple of "16-bit" micros - the Z-120 and the Z-110....

You can keep your 8-bits - with the new 16-bit TeleVideo family

From the company which over its lifetime sold millions of terminals comes a range of 16-bit micros that look somewhat like, er, terminals. That wasn't really a coincidence as Richard DuBridge, executive...

Get on line with Laskys - for the best in personal computers

Laskys (or should that be Lasky's) was not a computer company at all, but the company is still worthy of an honourable mention in dispatches for being a stalwart of the home computer industry in terms...

Sinclair ZX Spectrum: Colour and sound... High-Resolution graphics... from only £125!

This advert shows the Mark 1 Spectrum - as shown by the light grey keys - which retailed for £125 (or around [[125|1983]] in [[now]] terms), and in a bit of a Sinclair theme, promised "coming soon" stuff...

Columbia PC: Anything IBM can do...

This is an advert for a hugely-significant machine in the history of the microcomputer - in particular that of the modern PC, in the IBM sense. It's for Columbia Data Products' PC - the first legal IBM...

Tandy TRS-80 Word Processing System

There was a phase for a few years where the idea of microcomputers being general-purpose machines still hadn't caught in with some sectors of the market, and so these general-purpose machines would still...