Sunday, May 27, 2007

The Best Old Computer Commercials

Here are some great old computer commercials.

One thing that is noting is how amazing sexist they are - Dad always is the one who buys the computer and the Son is always the recipient because he has poor grades. The most Mom ever uses a computer for is to put in a recipe or two and sister is almost never seen. The worst case is the last ADAM commercial below where the sister helps brother get a computer so that she can get a Cabbage Patch Kid - heaven forbid she might want to play Donkey Kong herself!



William Shatner got as fat as bloatware!



Apparently, only boys played with computers in the 80's!



Computers don't lie - they're honest...huh?



Balmer still sounds like that 20 years later...and when did Reversi become a feature?!



I had this computer myself - for the price it was actually a great computer, but it got smoked thanks to poor marketing and support from TI by Commodore in the mid-80s.



I had this computer as well. This was one of the last generation of personal computers before the PC takeover in the mid-80s which accounts for its everything but the kitchen sink approach. It had video games, a super speed tape drive, a daisy wheel printer, a build in word processor, etc. It was an odd computer, and it didn't sell very well. But I had one for about 2-3 years and it worked quite nicely for my needs when I was in junior high school.

Another strange note on the ADAM: the version of BASIC was a complete rip-off of Apple II BASIC. I noticed the syntax similarities when I was over at a friends place and then went to the library and borrowed all the Apple II BASIC programming books I could find and had a blast!

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