1985 adverts
Philips
12th January 1985
Get things going - with the Philips portable P2000C
The spec of this machine makes it seem almost like an update to 1984's KayPro, with a similar 9" green-screen monitor and 5¼" floppies - in this version capable of storing up to 6...
Advance Memory Systems
12th January 1985
AMX Mouse - Points the way
Pre-dating the launch of home computers that came with and were optimised for mice - such as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST - there was a phase of "retro fitting" the fashionabl...
Acorn
February 1985
Ask an expert why the Electron's the best micro in its class
Another advert for the Acorn Electron, the cut-down version of the BBC Micro. In common with many other Electron adverts, it stresses the fact that it's mostly the same as the e...
Sinclair
March 1985
Turn your Spectrum into a Spectrum+ for just £20
1985 was the beginning of the end for Sinclair, at least as far as Uncle Clive was concerned. The company's "next generation" QL, launched in January 1984 but not actually availabl...
Atari
April 1985
The 520ST. Over-qualified and under-paid
After resigning from Commodore in January 1984 - the business he founded as a typewriter repair outfit in the 1950s, and the company that produced the world's first all-in-one "pe...
Yamaha
April 1985
The MSX micro that's paid its musical dues
Luckily for the incumbent micro manufacturers of the UK and the US, the Japanese - whose invasion had been feared since the late 1970s - were surprisingly late to the party. Whe...
Enterprise/Elan
April 1985
Instead of computers catching up with technology, technology now has to catch up with a computer
In the summer of 1982, one-time Olympic chess player and former chess grandmaster David Levy, of Intelligent Software - a company best known for producing programs like Cyrus IS C...
Wang
April 1985
Who says you can't get fired for buying IBM?
Wang, founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G.Y. Chu, was a US computer company based in Massachussetts, US, which, at its peak in the 1980s generated revenues of $3 billion bef...
ACT/Apricot
April 1985
A beginner's guide to the best in business computers
ACT had carved out a briefly-successful niche in the UK with its Apricot range of micros, several of which touted their "Sirius" compatibility, rather than the usual IBM. Howeve...
Namal
April 1985
Type and Talk Speech Computer
The Type and Talk Speech Computer was built by Namal Peripherals of Gwydir Street in Cambridge, and distributed by the Cambridge Microcomputer Centre of nearby-ish East Road. Th...
Amstrad
June 1985
The home computer that means business - Amstrad CPC664
When interviewed about the upcoming Atari ST, former Commodore founder and all-round legend Jack Tramiel said "Home computer? I never heard of it - I make personal computers". I...
Micronet
June 1985
Micronet 800: Nice password, shame about the identity
With an advert containing a theme still relevant to a modern audience - "your special identity number and personal password the valuable key to a huge database" - Micronet 800 wa...
Commodore
July 1985
All you need to do this, is this: The Commodore 128 and 64
Officially launched at the 1985 January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and built with the same case used for the late-model C64s, the Commodore 128 was the company's last ...
Miracle Technology
September 1985
Miracle Technology WS2000 Modem: Ace Down The Line
The last time a modem was advertised as a thing in its own right was probably towards the end of the 1990s, when the pinacle of dial-up - the 56K modem - came out. Before then, the...
Amstrad
September 1985
It does accounts, projections, wordprocessing and 180mph
Only months after Amstrad had released the CPC 664, it was back with an entry in the battle-du-jour which by late summer of 1985 was all about 128K micros. Whilst not really off...