14 Comments For This Post

1. Mike Says:
   November 23rd, 2009 at 7:43 am

   Hate to say it, but these ads to point to some significant issues with modern technology ads… type-setting. These ads, especially the “How to get from Sesame St. to Wall St.” all have fantastic use of fonts, spacing, copywriting, and placement… something that you rarely see if you were to flip through a modern technology magazine, where ads are more or less modern replications of “Boys Life X-Ray Glasses.”

2. Heather Says:
   November 23rd, 2009 at 8:08 am

   I don’t think so, Mike. With the exception of “How to Get From Sesame St. to Wall St.” (which I really, really like), I think the type-setting is awful, even compared to some modern-day tech ads.

3. Rick Says:
   November 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 pm

   I remember these ads…I started with a Vic20, then moved to a C=64. I had friends with TRS-80s, CoCo’s and Apples. I got Compute! and Compute!s Gazette and spent hours punching in machine code, only after creating the machine code editor that preceded the code in the issues. Truly fun times.

   Back then in school, it was awesome to submit a book report or essay that had been printed in NLQ on a dot matrix (or daisy wheel) printer attached to your home computer. How many parents bought their kids those machines with such a scenario in mind? And how many of those kids wound up playing games and using cracking programs to make copies of games? And what of one’s first experiences with modems and BBS?

   They were heady times, full of promise for the future. The competition in the industry led to amazing innovations and creativity.

   Comments about fonts and typesetting aside, does anyone really think that the current crop of “Hi, I’m a Mac”…”I’m a PC” are really any better than those ads of the 1980s?

   I’d say that in terms of marketing creativity, we’ve gone backwards compared to those older advertising efforts.

4. Woody Says:
   November 24th, 2009 at 9:40 am

   My experience was a lot like Ricks starting with the VIC-20.
   Wonderful machine because it used color!
   I belonged to clubs where we would meet at a different members home every week or so.
   Learning to program in Basic was a blast when you would get on a friends ‘puter’ & type in a memorized program that when you typed ‘Run’ & hit enter the friends name would flash on the screen in colors that would change every few seconds. My buddies would be ‘Amazed’ if they hadn’t learned Basic yet.
   Real ‘Heady’ times back then, specially when the Web started being available to us ‘ordinary’ guys & Email became fashionable!!!

5. computers for less Says:
   November 26th, 2009 at 8:50 pm

   It was the C64 versus the Apple ][ for me. The c64 had some sweet games, but it was the basic programming of the apple that got me hooked. The old apple ||c might still be in the parents garage – might have to take a look next time I am there.

   Maybe it was the advertisements like this that made me go with the apple.

6. Darrencardinal Says:
   November 27th, 2009 at 10:23 pm

   These ads are so unreal. You never used your computer like that with your parents standing there smiling at you.

   Using the computer is by it’s nature a solitary activity.

   And I do thing the modern mac vs. PC ads are better, because they are funny.

7. Dan Says:
   November 30th, 2009 at 5:06 am

   Forget the computers…. I can’t get over the outfits here. Ah, the days when mom had a severe perm and used to wear horrid plaid dresses with football shoulder pads.

8. retrojoe Says:
   December 3rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm

   I don’t see what is so “vaguely disturbing” about these ads. They don’t seem any more or less strange than printed ads for other consumer products in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
   Weird to me, is an ad claiming that a carton for luck strikes under the tree is an unbeatable Christmas gift.

9. Michael david Says:
   January 2nd, 2010 at 9:03 am

   Hi,

   Awesome post,just found this post from my Yahoo Buzz upcomming blogpost news feed, really interesting post, keep it up.

   Michael

10. Jewel Says:
    March 24th, 2010 at 8:39 am

    Cool ad. Really portrays the 1980 lifestyle. And look how old the computer looks like.

11. sandviç panel Says:
    July 2nd, 2011 at 6:57 am

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12. bims Says:
    July 2nd, 2011 at 3:20 pm

    .) When I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Thanks!

13. Gerri Yockers Says:
    August 3rd, 2011 at 11:21 am

    Have you ever tried The Legend Of Zelda – Ocarina of Time? I play it on my 3DS. Its incredible!

14. Jeu flash Says:
    October 12th, 2011 at 5:07 am

    Sympa comme site ! Vous avez un flux Rss pour suivre votre fil ? Je ne le trouve pas… 🙁

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