Laskys Advert - November 1982

Laskys (or should that be Lasky's) was not a computer company at all, but the company is still worthy of an honourable mention in dispatches for being a stalwart of the home computer industry in terms of retail.

It was established in around 1933 and was known as Lasky's Radio Ltd by the early 1970s, but was bought out by electrical retailer Comet in 1989. Comet collapsed in 2012, but was re-launched as an online business in 2019.

It was a high-street retailer that for several years was a popular outlet for computer buyers, and this advert encompasses many of the popular machines of the moment, with the Apple II at £739 (£3,410 in 2024), Commodore VIC-20 for £159 (£730), Atari 400 and 800 - the latter being the better machine with a proper keyboard but for the not inconsiderable price of £499 (£2,300), the Sharp MZ-80A at £549 (£2,530) and the legendary Osborne 1 topping out the price range at £1,439 (£6,640).

Maybe it says something about the era that Lasky's styled itself as "The Home Entertainment Specialists", perhaps echoing the feeling that computers for the home were still largely a "toy" - even though this advert features several serious business machines.

In a spooky echo of the future, Lasky's in 1971 - as Lasky's Radio Ltd - is also selling a Sinclair product, in this case audio components from the Project 60 range. From Practical Electronics, March 1971

A few places on the High Street remain where it's possible to wander in and buy an actual computer at random, such as John Lewis, although these sorts of outlets mostly concentrate on laptops and tablets.

Generally though sales migrated towards dedicated computer shops like PC World, own-brand outlets like Apple's, or mail order/the internet like Dell. Dedicated computer shops were exactly the sort of outlet that Commodore famously spurned when it first launched the VIC-20 in 1981, as they were seen to be too intimidating to "the masses".

Lasky's was also not averse to a spot of co-sponsorship. In July 1983, together with the Daily Express, it sponsored a competition where eight schools shared £20,000 (£85,000 in 2024 money), the prizes being computer equipment selected from Lasky's stores.

The final, at the Westmoreland Hotel in London, required pupils to design and decorate their idea of "a family home in the year 2000 using Atari 800 computers" - presumably using the Ataris to design, rather than requiring them to still be around in the homes of 2000AD^[1].

Also worthy of note is the advert's tag: "Get on-line with Laskys", showing that even in 1982 - where modems were still expensive and something of a luxury and the GPO still called the shots about what was allowed to be plugged in to its network - the concept of being "on line" was already well-established.