A history of the microcomputer industry in 300 adverts

Compuserve

It's been ten years since Compuserve launched the world's first online real-time chat service, the CB Simulator, and a couple of years since the "invention" of Internet Relay Chat - the online messaging/chat...

Thanks to CompuServe's CB Simulator, 'Digital Fox' Accessed 'Data Hari' and Proceeded to an 'Altared' State

Probably like the 1960's generation liked to think it invented sex, today's "yoof" probably like to assume that they invented "on-line". However it was not so, as shown by this advert for CompuServe...

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....

The new MPF1 Plus - The lowest-cost Z80 computer with all these features!

The Microprofessor MPF-1 Plus was a redesigned version of the original MPF-1, originally released by Multitech Industrial Corporation in the summer of 1982. Its launch came after the company had released...

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...

Join the jet set

Apart from its Prestel and Teletext adapters, and the much-delayed 6502 second processor unit, all of which were high-end or niche, Acorn wasn't particularly well know for its own-branded peripherals,...

New: The IT Andromeda Zita-E

This is another mystery entry, in this case for the Andromeda Zita-E - for Executive - from ITCS, or IT Computer Services Limited of Ashford, near Staines, in Middlesex. The Andromeda's hardware was...

Now the integral system with performance, quality, expandability and reliability

The ABC24 and ABC26 were Z80 micros which differed only in the size of floppy disk drive they offered - either 620K on dual 5¼" drives, or an impressive 2.3MB on dual 8" drives. The machines were actually...

The new 1Mb 1040STF: With a memory like that you can be sure we haven't forgotten a thing

By the middle of 1986, the IBM PC was well-established as the "standard" computer architecture, but there was a handful of alternatives, including Commodore's Amiga, Apple's Macintosh and Atari's popular...

You'll never forget your first TMK 300 micro

Unlike the rest of the world then, as this advert didn't appear that often, with this placing in specialist systems magazine Systems International and the occasional appearance in PRAC. It's for a range...

HP 9000: Today, HP can give you full 32-bit power

At around the same time as HP was dabbling in the mainstream microcomputer market with machines like its HP-86, released in 1982 and which retailed for $2,820, which is about [[2000|1983]] in [[now]],...

The new GEC 1450 makes building a system child's play.

GEC - or General Electric Company plc - was a large British conglomerate with interests in defence, electronics, communications and engineering. It was founded in 1886, making it one of the oldest companies...

A Graphic Display of Intelligence

Cifer was established in Melksham, Wiltshire in 1972, as a manufacturer of terminals and - later on - microcomputers. According to its advert it became a major supplier in the European OEM market, meaning...

Make friends with Panther... The British micro system

Here's another advert for another fairly generic Z80-based (or possibly Intel 8080) CP/M micro system, from Cyber Electronics Ltd. of Ilford in Essex. Unlike most similar adverts, this one oddly shows...

Low cost, expandable Limrose LMC 6800-2

Limrose Electronics was founded in May 1971 by Dr Ravi Raizada as a seller of electronic logic tutors which taught how basic logic gates operated. It went on to release the MTP8080 Microtutor - a teaching...