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10 Computer Ads From The 80s

techyshit.com — Wow! 80s sure does seem like a medieval era now after looking at these computers that were famous back then

Who dugg this? Made popular Nov 7, 2008

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  • inactive, on 11/07/2008, -1/+94Our mouse has only one button, making it extremely difficult to press the wrong one.
  • jrapp, on 11/07/2008, -0/+57HOLY CRAP! THE FRANKLIN ACE 1200 HAS BOTH UPPER AND LOWER CASE KEYS??!? WHAT ELSE HAVE I BEEN MISSING OUT ON?
  • duggtodeath, on 11/07/2008, -2/+57Cosby hawking computers? Awesome.
  • built2spill, on 11/07/2008, -0/+46I adore my 64.
  • apgordon, on 11/07/2008, -1/+42Dugg for all the text in the ad needed to explain why someone would want such a thing.
  • PE290, on 11/07/2008, -0/+35"Innovation at it’s very best!"

    Nice grammar there, Radio Shack.
  • Jforsyth89, on 11/07/2008, -0/+32And of course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZvhPGXrg0g
  • gordonp, on 11/07/2008, -0/+31Amiga FTW
  • MacBookForMe, on 11/07/2008, -10/+39Macintosh was so cool!
  • inactive, on 11/07/2008, -10/+35it blows my mind how they've still kept it after all these years, ***** MAKE IT TWO BUTTONS @#@%#
  • abadjay, on 11/07/2008, -0/+23"some mice have two buttons, Macintosh have one, so it makes it extremely difficult to push the wrong button"

    I love captain obvious adds from the 80's!
  • BlueKrypton, on 11/07/2008, -1/+22Bring back the C64!
  • WhatiFind, on 11/07/2008, -0/+17I sure miss my Sinclair ZX81...
  • inactive, on 11/07/2008, -2/+19bill cosby is the best! always a good choice for a commercial no matter the year!
  • surian, on 11/07/2008, -0/+16Steve Ballmer has serious issues... at least now he's rich enough that he can be "eccentric" back then he was just plane bat ***** crazy.
  • Pinasco, on 11/07/2008, -0/+15WTF C64 gets no love.
  • DiscoLando, on 11/07/2008, -0/+14The Commodore 64 lives on!
  • merlinklein, on 11/07/2008, -0/+14Yep $1000 for an Atari 800 with 16K ram and Cassette Drive.
    Still have it and it still works.
    Keep it around to play Star Raiders!

  • doctechnical, on 11/07/2008, -0/+14My eyes are starry for my Atari.
  • inactive, on 11/07/2008, -2/+15"some mouses have two buttons, we have one so it's difficult to push the wrong button"

    Only Apple's ad force can make a lack of a feature sound like a good thing
  • KaJuN4, on 11/07/2008, -0/+13Dugg for all 10 computer ads all being on the SAME PAGE!!! *****!!
  • PabloMac, on 11/07/2008, -0/+12I talk smack about my Mac.
  • UnFriendlyFire, on 11/07/2008, -0/+12"I wasn't born till 1990..."

    Feeling old now, going to take a nap.
  • CaliforniaEagle, on 11/07/2008, -3/+15Who would have thought computers would have evolved to where we are today.
    Some of these ads are atrocious with as much copy as there is to look at...my eyes my eyes!"
  • doctechnical, on 11/07/2008, -0/+11Yeah, it could make toll calls for free.
  • barfooz, on 11/07/2008, -4/+14Not going to happen. The whole UI of OS X is designed to have all functionality accessible without bringing up context menus. Apple is stubborn and they don't want to use context windows as primary interaction modes like Windows does.
  • geoboy, on 11/07/2008, -0/+10I sit and stare at my Sinclair.
  • sillygato, on 11/07/2008, -0/+10Dugg for the wrong "it's" (should be its) in the Radio Shack ad. How did THAT get past the editors?
  • jeexbit, on 11/07/2008, -0/+10I miss the ole //e...
  • doctechnical, on 11/07/2008, -0/+9Dugg for Star Raiders. Star Commander Rank 1 here.
  • surian, on 11/07/2008, -0/+9Of all those ads, the only one that I didn't find completely hilarious was the Mac one. At the time, that system was actually pretty ground breaking and the ad wasn't stretching the truth.

    The fact that the mouse has only one button so it's "extremely difficult to press the wrong button" was funny though...
  • jlungu, on 11/07/2008, -0/+8VisiCalc. Dammit, I'm old.
  • dwright99, on 11/07/2008, -0/+8I never had more fun on a computer than I did with my Amigas.
  • BossKey, on 11/08/2008, -0/+8reminds me of the old joke, about the freshman at Harvard...

    "Scuse me, do you know where the library's at?"
    "What?"
    "I said, do you know where the library's at?"
    "Look, here at Harvard, we do not end a sentence with a preposition."
    "Oh, ok...
    ...do you know where the library's at.....*****?"
  • ribo, on 11/07/2008, -1/+9I still have a TI-99. It rocks pants.

    Hunt the wumpus 4 evah.
  • sjbdallas, on 11/07/2008, -0/+8I found the newpaper ad for the first PC I bought a few months ago in a filing cabinted. A 386 with windows 3.1, a 120mb hard drive, 2600baud modem, 2mb ram. I seem to remember upgrading to 4mb a few months later. Got it home, signed up for my compuserve account and I was set.
  • Ramble, on 11/07/2008, -5/+13That Apple ad is just full of smarm. Nothing has changed.
  • newbill123, on 11/07/2008, -1/+8No, it's different: Apple Garamond (an 80% compressed custom Garamond) was their headline typeface until shortly after the iMac came on the scene. They long ago switched to Palatino for body copy unlike in this ad.

    Myriad (a san serif type) is Apple's favorite for everything these days both for advertising and developer documentation.
  • inactive, on 11/08/2008, -0/+7That's no lady, that's my TRaSh80
  • KMartSheriff, on 11/07/2008, -1/+8@BoonTobias

    They have had 2-button mice for many years (well, 5-button actually).
  • Mawds, on 11/07/2008, -0/+7Where is the Sinclair Spectrum 48K?
    I am sad and shocked by this.
  • ShArKSe7eN, on 11/07/2008, -0/+7Oh wow... I forgot about the IBM ad campaign that used the Charlie Chaplin look-a-like!
  • cruik, on 11/07/2008, -1/+8King Tut, Benjamin Franklin and Charlie Chaplin definitely do not evoke a sense of state of the art technology. Bill Cosby on the other hand....
  • dlm85, on 11/07/2008, -0/+72600 baud modem?
  • IAmTheGuy, on 11/07/2008, -0/+7Good idea because technology is cyclical.
  • inactive, on 11/07/2008, -0/+6The Amiga was totally ***** rad at the time. I played Sim City and Prince of Persia for hours on it! Way cooler than on Mac, which was black and white.
  • fcrow, on 11/07/2008, -2/+8OMG the real reason the mac mouse has only one button!!

    The Mac mouse has only one button because two or three are to difficult and you might incidentally press the wrong one. Don't you hate that when it happens? (like never)

    On the right of the Mac: http://oldcomputers.net/ads/80s/macintosh-1.jpg
  • alperea, on 11/07/2008, -1/+7I love captain obvious subtracts from the 80's more.
  • Suzilla, on 11/07/2008, -0/+6Ah, the HP-85. When I first saw this, thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Integrated screen, printer and tape storage. Wow!

    When HP decided to discontinue the line, it left about 100,000 users in the lurch. So, I wrote a Series-80 BASIC for the PC. Never really caught on, but it was a fun project.

    /n is for nostalgia ...
  • mal1964, on 11/07/2008, -9/+15"Introducing Macintosh. What makes it tick. And talk"
    DRM restrictions
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