I never collected Compute! magazine – there were computer magazines better suited to my Sinclair ZX Spectrum – but happening upon the Compute! Magazine Archive online brought back warm memories of listings, technical talk (some of which is still beyond my understanding and I’ve worked in the industry for decades), and wonderful adverts.
It’s probably because I’ve not been as interested in other subjects in quite the same way I’ve been interested in computers (although, again, decades of working in the industry does take some of that shine off it all) but computer magazine adverts hold a fascination that adverts today don’t. If marketing people could take a piece of that charm from old adverts and inject them into modern attempts to track us and get us buying stuff we don’t need I might even consider whitelisting some of the sites.
Probably not.
Anyway, here’s a selection of full page adverts, some good, some less so, all just lovely anyway.
An office at United Microware’s game division headquarters:
“Gentlemen, it’s time to market our games. It’s time to market the hell out of them!”
“Which games are these again, Jeff?”
“It’s mostly our exceptional science fiction games, Ted. Meteor Run, Alien Blitz, and so on.”
“Gotcha! What’s our strategy?”
“Ginger-haired female clown looking quite surprised that there’s a pile of computer games under her hand.”
“Your wife’s a clown, isn’t she?”
“What of it?”
“She’s a redhead too, isn’t she?”
“And? What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I’m completely on board with this marketing approach.”
Great, colourful artwork, a sci-fi theme, and a subtle message, easily missed completely, that this game might – only might, mind you – contain hyperspikes. Hyperspikes!
Fair play to Small Systems Engineering for grabbing my attention and getting me excited for… a BASIC compiler! You can sort things at lightning speed! That’s the power of bald, grumpy-looking aliens who’ve been working out and can squeeze into their power armour.
A great piece of advertising here evoking thoughts of a thrilling cinema experience in what you know is probably a disappointing 2D block graphics lump of misery. Still, there’s all the thrill of the nighttime game mode where your car has to avoid the ghosts. I guess they can clog up the demister or something. Then it’s blurry viewing and a traffic stop for driving without due care and attention. And ghosticide, which is a real crime.
An office at Mimic System Inc’s software division headquarters:
“People want to emulate an Apple II+ on their Commodore 64 and now, thanks to us, they can!”
“Hoorah!”
“Next step! Advertising. And I think you’ll like what we’ve come up with here.”
“Is that a sex fiend?”
“No. It’s a mime.”
“But it looks like he’s trying to entice children into his van with our software which, I need to remind you, is called Spartan. Not Paedomime.”
“Adverts don’t need to make sense.”
“Isn’t your brother-in-law an out-of-work mime?”
“He got some work recently, actually. What of it?”
“Never mind.”
The President’s daughter has been kidnapped and only you can save her. Only you and your sophisticated Assault Technology. But will that be enough against Man Who’s Terrified Of Fire? Yes? Well, what about Guy Who Washed His Karate Outfit With His Wife’s Red Knickers? Yeah, not so tough now, are we?
There’s a special kind of bravery present in a company that shows off its game artwork bears no resemblance to the game it’s advertising and that’s the same bravery that comes just before a company starts selling a lot less games than its marketing budget warranted. A quick check shows that Titus does still exist but that they don’t have a fax number so they’re probably on the way down.
As a young fan of computers there were certain things that appealed to me in computer magazine adverts: spaceships and buxom women. Oh, and of course! How could I forget?! Spaceships, buxom women, and old men in dark rooms looking at slow-moving dots!
High resolution graphics you’re going to have to imagine in a game that cost $35 back in 1982 which means it paid for itself if you played on your Atari or Apple instead of popping down to the local pool hall fifteen hundred times. In today’s money that game would set you back $4,350 so remember that the next time you’re complaining about the cost of the latest Halo episode.
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