Gemini Micro Advert - December 1984

Gemini Microcomputers, of Amersham in Buckinghamshire, seems to have based its entire existance on more-or-less the same thing - boards built around the Z80 CPU and running CP/M, the popular but ageing operating system from the 1970s.

Here, for a change, it's offering its boards in an off-the-shelf style, where it was possible to have micros built to order. This business model became especially popular with the rise of IBM PC clones, where hundreds of random companies based in anonymous industrial estates around the UK would build PCs to specific requirements. The model remains today, in particular with gaming PCs.

In a nod to the now and/or near future and the growing dominance of the IBM PC standard, Gemini is also offering "the addition of a 16-bit card [which] will allow you to run many popular programs now being generated".

The advert, meanwhile, at least shows some originality, in contrast to many others which just showed a moodily-lit computer sitting on a table. The tailoring metaphor actually works, unlike some.