1978 adverts

Introducing the Pedigree PET - 8K only £499

The PET was the indirect result of a project by MOS Technology of Pennsylvania to develop its 6500 series of microprocessors, which had been designed as drop-in replacements for Motorola's 6800 by ex-Motorola...

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

South West 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 branching out into microcomputers....

North Star: Four star performers for the S-100 bus

A simple advert for North Star's range of S-100 boards - designed for its own Horizon micro, but compatible with any other S-100 micro running Intel's 8080 or the Zilog Z80 processor. The range included...

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 the Osborne, at a luggable...

Vector Graphic's microcomputer: What's in it for you?

Vector Graphic's Memorite "turn-key" microcomputer system (which meant "turn it on and it's ready") is an early entry in a curious sideline of the micro industry - that of the computer that's really a...

Introducing the Space Byte 8085 CPU

This advert is for one of many single-board computers available at the time, but it's worth an entry because the company name is one of comparitively few which actually used some sort of space-age theme....

When you get right down to it, nobody does it better

Carly Simon might disagree that "nobody does it better", but here's a nice advert from Vector Graphic for a whole range of its S-100 boards. The boards include a Z80 board for $215 and a 16K Static memory...

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 is actually for a couple...

Tomorrow's computer here today: The Bytemaster

The Bytemaster - or perhaps more correctly the Mini Bytemaster - was the last computer to be designed by the Digital Group, of Denver, Colorado, before the company's collapse in 1979. It was based around...

MK 14 - the only low-cost keyboard-addressable microcomputer!

This is the second-earliest reference in this collection - and the first to mention an actual computer - to the company that would become Sinclair, which did so much to kick-start the UK home computer...

Nascom 1 Microprocessor Z80 kit

Nascom, the computer company which was eventually acquired by car-parts maker Lucas was, for a while, the UK's biggest supplier of computer kits. It was established by Lynx Electronics - the hobbyist...

The new Sinclair DM235 digital multimeter. 3.5 digits. Under £50!

Sinclair Radionics, the company that was based in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire, was in some financial difficulties during the mid 70s, and was part-nationalised by the National Enterprise Board. During...

Bywood SCRUMPI: 2 + 3 = ?

Had it not been for one of The Register's great articles on one of the forgotten pioneers of the early computer scene, this advert from Bywood, a company founded in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, by...

Announcing the IMSAI VDP-40 - Microcomputer System Solution

Here is an advert for IMSAI's less well-known VDP-40, the VDP bit standing for "Video Data Processing", whilst IMSAI was a contraction of IMS Associates, Inc, itself standing for "Information Management...

Now there are at least 102K more reasons to buy the Heathkit H8 - the WH17 Floppy!

This is a straightforward advert from popular electronics-kit manufacturers Heath, trading as Heathkit Computers of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Heathkit's H8, an Intel 8080A-based machine running on Heathkit's...