1978 adverts
Altos
August 1978
Altos presents a new standard in quality and reliability - Altos ACS8000
This is an advert for the Altos "Sun Series" ACS8000, made by Walsh Avenue, Santa Clara, California-based Altos Computer Systems, that is surely vying for pole position in the fie...
Ohio Scientific
August 1978
The world's most powerful microcomputer system is far more affordable than you may think
Formed in 1975 in Hiram, Ohio, but by 1978 based in Aurora, Ohio Scientific had started out producing a small 6502-based single-board computer called the Superboard. The C3-B of ...
SWTPC
August 1978
SWTPC: System B $4,495.00
It's another entry in that curious sideline of the early microcomputer industry: computers as furniture. On offer is Southwest Technical Products' System B - a CT-64 terminal, du...
Sinclair
September 1978
MK14 - the only low-cost keyboard-addressable microprocessor!
What would become the home computing part of the Sinclair empire was at this time operating under the moniker of Science of Cambridge, whilst the Sinclair name itself was still at...
Ohio Scientific
September 1978
Ohio C2-8P: An exceptional value in personal computing
Released at about the same time as the company's much larger (and more expensive) Challenger III range, the II was aimed more at the small-business and personal end of the market ...
RCA
September 1978
COSMAC VIP: $249 gets the entire family into creating video games
RCA's COSMAC VIP was a small kit-built microcomputer, based around the COSMAC - COmplementary Symmetry Monolithic Array Computer - CPU and which was aimed at the video market crea...
Soroc
September 1978
The Soroc IQ120
Soroc was founded in Anaheim, California, in 1975 by five ex-employees of Lear Siegler Incorporated (LSI), another terminal manufacturer. Various sources suggest that the company...
Tandy/Radio Shack
October 1978
TRS-80 - The biggest name in little computers. Complete and ready to go NOW!
It's another advert for one of the "1977 Trinity" - the Z80-based Tandy TRS-80. A year after its launch, the Level-II system appeared, with an expanded BASIC in ROM, now at 12K....
Transam
October 1978
Triton One-Board Computer
The Triton one-board computer started life jointly sponsored by Transam and Electronics Today International (ETI), as a sort of cross-marketing collaboration. Transam provided t...
Atari
16th November 1978
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...
Shugart
December 1978
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" ...
Processor Technology
December 1978
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 whi...
Apple
December 1978
Why Apple II is the world's best selling personal computer
According to The Register, Apple has long since possessed a "reality distortion field", with Steve Jobs being known as "Old Reality Distortion Field, because when he appeared, fac...
PerSci
December 1978
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 siz...
Smoke Signal
December 1978
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 th...
Dynabyte
December 1978
Dynabyte computers are all business inside and out
This is a nice advert for Dynabyte showing various models in its DB series of microcomputers. The middle box is the company's DB 8/1 microcomputer - a 4MHz Z-80 CPU with one para...
Heathkit
December 1978
It SHOULD be a Heathkit Computer System
This is another advert from The Heath Company of Benton Harbour, Michigan - and which traded as Heathkit - for a variety of its micros and peripherals of the day. It's nice for a ...
MicroDaSys
December 1978
Get it out of your system: MicroDaSys makes it easy
On the face of it, this is yet another Motorola 6800-based system with an S-100 bus, however it's perhaps the micro which more than any other most closely resembles an actual type...