Intertec Advert - October 1982

This advert appears to be about the only one that Intertec ever did itself that actually features its SuperBrain micro, which was fairly omnipresent from its launch in 1979 and for a large chunk of the early 1980s.

The original SuperBrain was a twin-Z80 machine with 64K dynamic memory and up to 1.5MB floppy-based storage, running CP/M.

When the first adverts started appearing for the SuperBrain, some in the press thought that the machine seemed too good to be true. It did, however survive for several years into the era of the IBM PC, which is perhaps no mean feat.

The machine suffered the usual delays in actually getting to market, which appeared to spawn rumours of trouble. When it did finaly appear in the UK, Sue Eisenbach's review in August 1980's Personal Computer World was very favourable, calling it:

"[a] compact, attractive 'single box' computer. It's competitively priced [and] has some lovely touches. I found the SuperBrain completely reliable, a pleasure to use and very impressive with the new, quiet, double-density double-sided drives"^[1].

The SuperBrain II of this advert was fundamentally the same as its forebear, however it had been completely redesigned internally.

It also had an improved operating system, as well as some enhancements to its display graphics - including support for text descenders.

By now there was also a hard-disk version available, offering up to 10MB storage.

The entry-level SuperBrain II retailed for $2,495 - about £7,680 in 2024 - which included a copy of Microsoft's BASIC.

That actually compared quite well to similar Z80 and CP/M-based systems like TeleVideo's TS 802, which retailed for $3,495, or around £10,700 in 2024 money