Butel-Comco Advert - March 1981

From another company that appears to have left almost no trace whatsoever - Butel-Comco Limited of Southampton - comes this advert for the Athena, one of a handful of microcomputers that came with a built-in printer.

There's virtually no information about the computer itself in the advert, other than it was capable of running all the usual business stuff - accounting, stock control and word processing - so it most likely had a Z80 processor which ran the company's own AMOS operating system, which was possibly based on some version of CP/M.

But whatever it was built on, it was relatively expensive, coming in at £5,694 plus VAT, or about £34,100 in 2026 money. It was however capable of supporting additional users, using additional terminals connected to it via serial ports.

An advert from the following month's Practical Computing, in which it's just possible to make out the floppy disk drives on either side of the monitor - all crammed together into the unusually-wide display housing. From Practical Computing, April 1981

As well as the built-in printer - as also seen in OKI's if800, HP's HP-85, 1978's Rockwell AIM-65 or the computer that was more printer than micro, Durango's 700 - the Athena sported an unusually-wide display housing.

Although it's hard to tell from the low-contrast photo, the actual display wasn't this wide as it housed floppy disk drives as well - one on each side of the actual monitor.

A Butel-Comco advert from two years later, from Practical Computing, March 1983

Butel-Comco was still going a few years later, although by now it had moved to the Garrick Industrial Centre in north-west London.

There's no mention of the Athena, but the company - as part of Butel Technology - appears to be (at least now) a straightforward Value-Added Reseller, offering consultancy, turnkey systems, software and microcomputers.

Its parent group was however reasonably successful as in 1987 it was acquired by Optim Computer Group, giving the combined company an estimated turnover of £10 million for the year end to October 1987, of which Butel accounted for some 25%.

Tech Monitor reported on the buyout and gave some details about Butel Technology, saying:

"Butel will add to [Optim Group] its local government-oriented office automation products and its cable management systems. Other packages offered by Butel include construction industry estimating; equipment hire and maintenance; joint venture accounting; food production and distribution; hospital administration; leisure booking; and theatre ticketing. Both companies are value-added resellers for AT&T/Olivetti 3B machines and the acquisition is bonded by another recent acquisition between Austec and Ryan-McFarland. Butel is a reseller for Data General and uses the Austec ACE products to move customer applications to Unix environments^[1]".