RAIR Advert - April 1980
From Personal Computer World
RAIR Terminal Choice - choose from the best
This is another fairly early advert from enigmatic company RAIR.
RAIR appeared to have started out, like ACT, as a timesharing bureau as well as a supplier of peripherals and terminals.
The company, as RAIR Timesharing, had appeared in September 1979's Personal Computer World Show in London where it had helped to demonstrate early computer telecommunications, with an Apple II on a stand at the show connecting back to its own DEC PDP-11[1].
RAIR's Black Box micro, which eventually became ICL's Personal Computer, was doing the rounds but the company was still showing its legacy as a supplier of terminals and printers.
RAIR was well regarded and was for a while the hope of the UK micro industry, until founder Mark Potts took the company down the multi-user route[2].
The advert also shows Texas Instruments' Silent 700 portable terminal. Costing £1,105, or about £6,280 in 2024, the '700 was notably used in a famous banking hack on Prudential Basche Securities in 1987.
Sources
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