A History of Computers, As Seen in Old TV Ads 123
Tiny Tuba writes "PC World's Harry McCracken pulls together a compendium of vintage PC commercials posted on YouTube. There are commercials from the 1980s right up to the present. If you are looking for a laugh, you will have fun with the Atari 400, Commodore 64 and more." Worth it for the Shattner Vic-20 commercial alone, but the others are well-picked too. Naturally, the Apple 1984 commercial is included.
Shattner? (Score:4, Funny)
Windows 95 "Start Me Up" (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes? You wanted something?
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He missed... (Score:5, Interesting)
Are You Keeping Up With The Commodore? [youtube.com]
I guarantee you'll have that stupid jingle stuck in your head for DAYS! (BWHAHAH!) I even named my most recent blog article [youtube.com] after it.
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http://akaimbatman.intelligentblogger.com/wordpre
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I hear a remix of this pretty often on http://slayradio.com/ [slayradio.com]
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What no Prime Computer? (Score:4, Interesting)
Those were some serious adds.
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Better than nothing.
Re:What no Prime Computer? (Score:4, Informative)
Rage the battle to destroy the evil forces (Score:2)
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Doctor Who / Romana, by any other name... (Score:2, Informative)
Halfway down the page, here [tv-ark.org.uk]. Now don't say I never give you anything!
more interesting progression (Score:5, Funny)
Re:more interesting progression (c64 pron) (Score:1)
I thought it was funny until...... (Score:3, Funny)
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Happy gaming! I didn't found out if the save function works (was there any), so every time you have to play from level 1, which is a bit tiresome with its 80 levels or so :D
It's still the best game around, easy to play, you have to puzzle a bit at each new level, great great fun.
Amiga Commercial (Score:5, Interesting)
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I remember watching a video at Software Etc. / Babages that had B.B. King and Andy Warhol using their Amiga computers to create art and music. After seeing that, I knew I had to have one.
This whole thing makes me a bit nostalgic and sad at the same time as I am reminded how something once great was lost to corporate greed...
People should realize that the PC's at the time were 286's with cga/ega graphics and a PC speaker fo
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Well by the time Little Richard and the Pointer Sisters got involved it was more like celebrity whore endorsements. I doubt Little Richard ever used an Amiga.
The launch with Andy Warhol creating a portrait of Debbie Harry using a digitizer and an early Amiga art program was pure class though.
I remember being pissed at Commodore for the crap marketing they did on the Amiga in the late '80s. The premium edition of Amiga Forever [amigaforever.com] i
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Holy Crap (Score:1)
Warning! (Score:5, Insightful)
That mofo has some powerful anti-mojo.
(Though I am from Nebraska, so maybe that's why.)
Stupid monkeyboy...
Re: Warning! (Score:4, Informative)
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wierd
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Re:Holy Crap (Score:4, Funny)
Apple II GS with the brief gimpse of Ant Farm? (Score:2)
Thank you in advance.
Commercial: Commodore Amiga 500 Introduction Video (Score:4, Informative)
IBM and Kaypro (Score:2)
I haven't seen most of these (I'm 23 so I missed the early computer age). I really like the Kaypro ad, and the IBM commercial with "Chaplin" is quite good also. That said, the commercial with the M*A*S*H cast is just a disaster (as the article mentions).
I wonder what a computer commercial by Michele Gondry would be like.
PS: Isn't it weird to see commercial after commercial, year after year, using the same 3 talking points? "Helps your kids in school", "Faster", and "Better value"?
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Re:IBM and Kaypro (Score:4, Funny)
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I ended up getting a used Commodore 128 when I was 9 or 10, which I learned BASIC on. Ended up majoring in CompSci and am a programmer now
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She withdrew her heretical stories? Or did you mean to say recounts?
(Remember, kids: diction is important!)
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Apples 1984 ad.... (Score:1)
Americans are not THAT prudish! (Score:4, Interesting)
A: The U.S., as far as I know. Rule one of European computer commercials: They're too dirty for American TV.
[/blockquote]
The commercial [google.com] that they link to is definitely something that could be shown on television. I have seen FAR worse than that. Granted, the U.S. certainly has worse decency laws than Europe (I remember seeing a water-bottle commercial involving a woman swimming naked in a submerged room), but censoring that would just be ridiculous.
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I think what happens is a combination of ACTUAL fear of government fines (i.e. fear the FCC will come after you, as they did after the Janet Jackson 'scandal') and fear people will get all up-in-arms and protest. The end result is that a TV station may not show a potentially indecent commercial, whethe
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And Ballmer... (Score:1)
Each day just get better, there's no doubt, each day he sweat a lot more...
I can't wait for Windows Vista Release Press Conference
Pre-IBM PC was an interesting era. (Score:2, Interesting)
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Software should not.
I blame MS, not IBM.
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References: full version [youtube.com], and a shorter compilation [youtube.com].
Wheres Balmer? (Score:1)
naturally... (Score:2)
:P
One of the greatest ads of all time (Score:3, Informative)
The Apple "1984" commercial [wikipedia.org] is considered to be one of the greatest advertisements of all time, in any product category. Indeed it is standard curriculum in marketing classes at colleges & universities around the world.
Apple 1984 (Score:1)
Somehow, I think a Commodore commercial would be everyone's honest favorite, after all, it is
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The funny part was that this ad was used to sell the launch of the Macintosh computer. A computer that at launch was strictly monochromatic.
The Apple 2 was more literally a more colorful computer than Mac.
I thought the early Macs were neat except fo
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I'm sure that other people who weren't old enough to remember agree with you.
I couldn't afford one in those days, but I was aware of the Macintoshes since about 1988.
It's like one guy wrote an article about it in the 90s and everyone bought into it like all the great things people had to say about Ronald Regan.
I can only assume that you mean Ronald Reagan. Although I bordered on hating him whe
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I was 15 when this Ad aired. I recall zero buzz around it. The media ignored. The masses ignored it. The geeky afterskewl computer club i belonged to ignored it. You might be one of the 2 people who saw and paid attention to this spot.
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I guess that the New York Times and the Cannes Film Festival [nytimes.com] are two bit outfits that don't matter.
Yeah, Reaganomics were just great. Have to love inflation. The war on drugs. The iran-contra. affair. Aliens. Psychics. His civil rights history was just awesome. middle america
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Mainstream American gives a rats ass about the Cannes Film Festival. Ask your average American what films have been shown there and they will shrug their shoulders. The 1984 commercial was mostly ignored/unseen/forgotten by the 80's populous. I'm sure afew papers wrote articles about it, buried in
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re: Apple's //e and the new Mac in '84 (Score:2)
Other Apple ads (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpY2Ei02lKI [youtube.com]: Powerbook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHWDAomz2CY [youtube.com]: I Mac
And where are the web designers... (Score:1)
This was very funn
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Other IBM Ads (Score:2)
the UBA ad featured a group of suits in a board room, with this blob that had every sort of connector imaginable on it. "the Universal Business adaptor allows you to connect any system to anyother system" the suits then start to question " sytstem x to y with z, a, b, and c" yes is the responce."does it work in Europe?"
Also particulary memorable was the iMac ad with the Rolling Stones song "she comes
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Apple Macintosh "1984" (1984, obviously) (Score:2)
Ballmer Ad (Score:1)
McCracken? (Score:1)
Harry McCracken
This must be Phil's brother.
I Miss My Commodore 16 (Score:3, Interesting)
To make a long story short. They had to send us the computer in the mail as they didn't actually have them in stock. So the long drive drive, and Time Share presentation we endured was frustrating in the end... But a few weeks later I was saving my first madlibs program on a tape drive, and truly enjoying life.
This lead me to my first Commodore 64, and then the 128. I made silly games like Box Hunters and Iron Clad that used the amazing sprite animations available on the 128. I thought I was a genius...lol
My God I loved my Commodores. I still do. BBS's.. Ghost Busters, Winter Games, Mission Impossible, Overkill... I could go on, but I bet MANY of you had the same experiences. Times will never be like that again. That feeling of having a keyboard in your hands and thinking that somehow you are going to give your computer AI with the BASIC computer language... The thought of downloading software over your phone line, and playing games with people you couldn't see...
I think I'm going to cry.
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A lot of afternoons were "wasted" with Epyx' Games series, sitting there with friends trying to establish new records... It looks like for a not so small percentage of people growing up in the 80s the defining factors were films like "War Games", Weird Science" and a Commodore computer
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"aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh"
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Another visitor. Stay a while...staaaayyyforeveeeerrrrRRR!!
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You forgot some of my favorite games, though, like The Temple of Apshai series, all the Infocom games, Loderunner, Ultima II & III, Bard's Tale, Wizardry, and Adventure Construction Set. I was on lots of BBSs
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That odd commodore music... (Score:1)
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After 11 years, I just noticed something: (Score:2)
Oh the ironing!
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$99 for a Windows copy? (Score:2)
Missed the only C64 ad I remember (Score:1)
Does anybody else remember this ad? I guess it was kind of late in the Commodore 64's life cycle, but I swear I used to see this ad several times a day. When my friends saw that I had a Commodore 64, they'd mockingly sing the jingle, which indicates just how well-known it was, at least where I lived.
infomercial (Score:1)
wikipeadia + video = ? (Score:2)
Vector Graphic? (Score:2)
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