Olivetti Advert - 25th February 1984
From Personal Computer News
When you add up the facts, no other micro equals ours
It's another advert for British Olivetti's M20 - in this case the entry-level dual-floppy M20 CQ, available for £2,064 - about £8,710 in 2025.
The M20 - first released in 1982 - was unusually based on Zilog's Z8000 processor and had its own custom operating system called PCOS. This meant it wasn't IBM-PC compatible and so it suffered from a lack of software, although Olivetti did supply the basics itself: Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Financial Planning and graphics.
Towards the end of 1983, Olivetti had launched a £200 8086 co-processor card for the M20, which finally gave it MS-DOS and CP/M-86 compatibility.
It filled an important gap as the M20 had previously been considered to be "out on a limb"[1].
Date created: 04 January 2024
Last updated: 11 December 2024
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Text and otherwise-uncredited photos © nosher.net 2025. Dollar/GBP conversions, where used, assume $1.50 to £1. "Now" prices are calculated dynamically using average RPI per year.
