Shelton Advert - January 1982

With a design that would not have looked out of place on Gerry Anderson's "Space: 1999", the Shelton sig/net 211 - designed by Chris Shelton, who had once worked for Nascom - was one of a range of modular microcomputers with a specific emphasis on networking.

The 211 model included Rodime mini-Winchester hard drives, with capacities from 3.3MB up to 13.3MB.

The top-of-the-range two-user system, which came with 192K RAM (64K for the multi-user operating/networking system and 2 x 64K for each user, running CP/M), 10MB hard disk storage, and the networking operatings system MCNOS, retailed for £4,999 - about £23,000 in 2024

Chris Shelton had started Shelton Instruments back in 1970, and as well as designing the Nascom 1 - the UK's best-selling kit computer in the late 1970s - became known for his work on microprocessors and microcontrollers.

A Shelton Instruments advert in July 1978's Personal Computer World showing the company importing and re-selling Matrox's range of S-100 and other graphics cards

Shelton Instruments itself became primarily a design consultancy^[1], with specialisms in medical and science applications, thanks to Shelton's academic connections.

The company was also not averse to selling other companies' products - for instance it was an early importer and reseller of graphics cards from Matrox.

Matrox was founded in 1978 and almost made it but was eclipsed by Nvidia and ATI, just after it launched its best product, the Millennium G200.