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Hilarious Antique IT Advertisements

Posted by Zonk on Fri Jun 15, 2007 12:24 PM
from the now-that-is-spooky dept.
It's funny. Laugh. IT
PetManimal writes "Computerworld has gone back through forty years worth of magazines, and came up with some entertaining IT-related advertising gems from decades past. Highlights include The Personal Mainframe, an image of the earliest screenless briefcase portables, and Elvira hawking engineering software. From the article: 'Remember Elvira, Mistress of the Dark? Besides appearing on TV in features like Elvira's Movie Macabre Halloween Special, Elvira also invited Computerworld readers to "cut through paper-based CASE [computer-aided software engineering] methods with LBMS" software. "The scariest thing about CASE is the several hundred pounds of books that land on your desk and for which you've paid fifteen gazillion dollars, when you buy off on a CASE development methodology," she writes. Can you guess what year Elvira appeared in this Computerworld ad? Headline hint: "IBM delays notebook arrival in U.S."'"
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  • The BEST one..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lumpy (12016) on Friday June 15 2007, @12:31PM (#19521461) Homepage
    man and woman on the couch, soft music playing she look into his eyes and says...

    "Can I see your Wang?"

    Damned best computer Ad ever... and it was pulled because it was too sexual.

  • print version.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2007, @12:32PM (#19521491)
    is here [computerworld.com]

  • That was when... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WED Fan (911325) <akahige&trashmail,net> on Friday June 15 2007, @12:33PM (#19521503) Homepage Journal

    That was when magazines were cool, you could learn Pascal, BASIC, and Assembly in one magazine because they had tons of listings. Hell, I remember using several articles to wire wrap my own S100 serial card.

    Ah, the good ol' days. When hackers were hackers.

    • Are there any programming magazines that still have code listings? or that ship with a CD with the code on it, which would be preferable? It seems like most of the good reading for programmers has moved to the web. Do any print magazines still exist? On a less related note, I was at the grocery store and realized that not one of the magazines in the checkout line was targeted to men. I know the demographic means that most of the shoppers will be women, but I don't see why there should be no magazines for

      • Are there any programming magazines that still have code listings?

        I subscribe to ASP.NET Pro Magazine. They have a lot of articles with code. They run multipart articles with entire solutions and code. Plus, they have a complete archive of old articles and source.

        Back in the '70s, one of my first apps was taken from a magazine article that with code for a "dungeon" game. It was a learning exercise to translate to something useable on my machine (syntax and all). Then, I started to alter it, expand it, and

      • Re:That was when... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by WED Fan (911325) <akahige&trashmail,net> on Friday June 15 2007, @02:00PM (#19522833) Homepage Journal

        Right on! Real hackers prefer to pay for magazines with a tiny predetermined set of information. Only lusers and n00bs read stuff online for free.

        <BackInMyDayRant>Hey, kiddo, :), back then, there was no "online" unless you were at a University or the time-share budget was gold. And when you were "online" it wasn't this nice wizbang WWW stuff. Back then, you were desperately trying to squeeze code AND data into 4k (or if you were lucky, you could write code to bank switch 16k). You had to get your timing right to get the phone into the acoustic cups, and Gods forbid you had a slim-line phone that didn't work well, or someone would fire up a vacuum cleaner and interfere with the modem noise. And you prayed that your paper tape would last through one more read because you were always too lazy to run another dump, or the department ran out of blank stock. And "hacking" was building or altering your own hardware to make it work with other hardware. It wasn't the script attack Angelina Jollie movie version.</BackInMyDayRant>

        Another fun project from the day: Building your own keyboard. Why? Because your computer didn't have one. Don't forget, you had to wire wrap the interface for it as well. That was fun, none of this, "Why doesn't the manufacturer include Linux drivers?" business. But, then, I drove a Vega, had a silk shirt and white belt, had long hair, had a puka shell necklace, the Moody Blues had broken up, Ford was a President who couldn't stay on his feet. Movies like "Drive In" and "Car Wash" were funny, "Jaws" was scary, and it wasn't 5-25-77 yet.

          • And, you probably remember, Radio Shack was the place to get all the parts you needed, and the guy behind the counter knew how to building an oscillator and could look at your hand drawn schematic and know what it was you were doing.

            Now, its some snot that doesn't want to help you find a pot because he makes more money selling cell phones to geezers who don't need them.

            Oh, sorry, nurse says its time for my meds and a then I get to sit in the garden.

      • ClueBAT!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by LWATCDR (28044) on Friday June 15 2007, @02:27PM (#19523241) Homepage Journal
        What was great back then is that the magazines would expose you to things you never would have looked at on your own. I first learned about Object Oriented Programing by reading the SmallTalk issue of Byte. I got interested in this really cool OS called Unix by reading about it in Byte. Yes Blogs can do the same thing now but let's face it 99.999% of all blogs are worth exactly what you pay for them.
        Slashdot is the closest thing to Byte I have found in a while but it lacks the editorial control that Byte had. Just look at how many misleading head lines you get. That and Byte was just about computers and didn't have any political content.
        I love the Internet for looking things up but yes I miss Byte.

  • Um...1991? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx (565205) on Friday June 15 2007, @12:39PM (#19521591)

    Can you guess what year Elvira appeared in this Computerworld ad?


    Um...1991? (Check the "copyright" at the bottom of the image.) Jeez.
  • "Worried about software costs? People who use it say The Personal Mainframe is the easiest system they have ever worked with. The DBMS complies with COASYL specifications. All the languages, from COBOL to FORTRAN are highly interactive".

    I should lay that one on my fiancee next time she complains about something being wrong with the PC.

  • 300 Baud is good enough for everyone... (Score:5, Funny)

    by CrazyTalk (662055) on Friday June 15 2007, @12:49PM (#19521735)
    I remember when blazing fast 1200 baud modems came out, and I replaced my 300 baud modem. The text (there were no graphics to be concerned about) would scroll by so fast that I couldnt read it. I figured there was really no need for faster modems than 300 baud, because I couldnt read faster than 300 baud anyway. Guess thats my version of the "No one needs more than 640K Memory" quote.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by drinkypoo (153816)
      300 baud modems really WERE baud-based, not bps-based, and so they provide 150cps (bytes/sec). If you type 75 words per minute at an average of 5 characters per word it's only a little over 6 cps. But I can read MUCH, MUCH faster than that. I know, because I once contacted a multiline text board BBS in my hometown "XBBS" with a BofA "homebanking" terminal, which had ANSI color, 40 columns IIRC, and a 300 baud modem. (And yes, I realize that this is not amazingly old tech nor does it earn me any "chops".) I

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by jellomizer (103300) *
        ZModem was faster on the average. Because it allowed you to continue downloading if you had a disconnection. Which at the time was common problem. So even if Ymodem-G could take an extra Minute per Megabyte. The fact that you didn't have to wast an other hour to download the file again was appealig. When I started to use the Internet normally FTPed on my remote terminal (over the ISP's T1 Line) then I used ZModem to download the file because using SLIP to FTP it directly which may be overall faster I

  • How the Elvira/LBMS ad was created (Score:5, Funny)

    by digitalderbs (718388) on Friday June 15 2007, @12:49PM (#19521741)
    Marketing dept guy #1 : How the hell are we going to sell this LBMS?

    Marketing dept guy #2 : Hmm.. Our customers are all sexually frustrated geeks. Let's put Elvira(R) on there. She's sexy and the kids seem to like her.

    Marketing dept guy #1 : That's a great idea.

    (Marketing dept prepares a mock-up. Marketing dept guy #1 reads off the text)

    Marketing dept guy #1 : "The most overwhelming aspect of CASE is the several hundred...LBMS will address these issues. Their Project Engineer(TM) and On-line Method(TM) toolsets will reduce development backlog."

    Marketing dept guy #2 : Wow, that sounds boring as hell. It'd sound way cooler if we made Elvira(R) say it. Try this :

    "The scariest thing about CASE is the several hundred...So how's about calling LBMS in ... heh heh ...Texas. Let them show you how their totally automated Project Engineer(TM) and On-Line Method(TM) toolsets can cut through development backlog." signed, Elvira(R)

    Marketing dept guy #1 : You're a genius. That sounds way more interesting. I've got wood.
    • You forgot the last line:

      Marketing dept guy #2: Let's call it a day and go get some call girls and some blow.
      • You both missed the real last line, and it's a beaut - on the ad, the _second_ tick box on the response form:

              "[ ] I'd just like a glossy reprint of this ad."

        Now _that_ is knowing you target audience...

        Beautiful marketing - probably not even allowed these days.

  • Reminds me of this... (Score:3, Funny)

    by griffenjam (1080861) on Friday June 15 2007, @12:52PM (#19521799)
    Riker selling some software... [youtube.com]

  • IBM PS/1 (Score:3, Funny)

    by MillionthMonkey (240664) on Friday June 15 2007, @12:56PM (#19521851)
    I remember seeing an ad for the IBM PS/1 when it came out as a successor to the PCjr marketed as a consumer-grade PS/1. The computer was sitting on a desk in the background wasting electricity and there was a family enjoying each others company in front of it, paying no attention to it at all. The ad had a tag line that I vaguely recall as "the first computer that knows you have a life" or something like that. I almost ran out and bought one but then I controlled myself and decided that if I could wait just a few more months I could buy a computer even worse.

  • Memory Lane (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smudge (79563) on Friday June 15 2007, @01:01PM (#19521925)
    Wow ... this was such a trip down memory lane!

    My kids think I'm a dinosaur when I say things like "we didn't have: cell phones | vcrs | ipods | personal computers | digital cameras ... when I was a kid." Now I look at these ads and see the advances in 'technology' in my WORKING lifetime.

    In my 1st job at a VERY LARGE computer company we had "terminal rooms". For the youngsters that's a room with 10 typewriter like things that you could use to submit your code. (No screen, just test on PAPER.) Then wait the rest of the day to get a printout from another room. This was an improvement over the punch cards of the year before.

    We eventual got tubes (terminals w/screen) in our offices, but usally 2 programmers per. And those had that lovely green on black text ... like a DOS prompt or X screen.

              Maybe they're right.
  • Well, not exactly WordStar. I grew up with WordStar on my Apple II+. Some years later when I started using Linux I found JOE (Joe's Own Editor.) I checked it out for the hell of it and was surprised how naturally all the WordStar commands came back to me. I've been using it ever since. It's not exactly WYSIWYG by today's standards, but it works great over SSH!
  • ...was a two-page advert from Sun, featuring Sally Struthers.

    The gist was something like, "Thinking of switching to NT? Isn't there enough suffering in the world?"

    I'd LOVE to find out where that can be found online... :D

  • Genicom printer ad (Score:5, Funny)

    by NormalVisual (565491) on Friday June 15 2007, @02:01PM (#19522847)
    My favorite ad was one I received in the mail from Genicom back in 1992 or 1993. It consisted of a medium-size green box with the following text on the front: "I dunno what happened. The printer was working just fine a minute ago". Open the box, and there was a real Stanley ball-peen hammer fastened inside, and "Deny everything" on the inside of the box lid. I still have the hammer, BTW. :-)

  • Not so shocking to me... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MS-06FZ (832329) on Friday June 15 2007, @02:46PM (#19523535) Homepage Journal
    The days of $12,000 80 MB hard drives and portable accoustic-coupler terminals are before my time - but not so far that the concepts seem completely alien. Accoustic couplers don't surprise me - I wanted one as a kid, but wound up getting a regular wired modem. I remember the time before internet e-mail was something I regularly used - when e-mail was something I could get only on BBSes, and therefore rather limited - so the idea of a time completely before e-mail doesn't surprise me either. And I remember when a 200 MB hard drive was a major investment - for me anyway - and before that when smaller hard drives than that were a big deal on a home computer.

    Likewise the notion of a laptop computer with the power of a PC XT, or any kind of big, heavy "portable" computer - my dad had a Commodore SX 64 when I was a kid, and I used to dream of having a real C-64 laptop.

    So probably this article has a much more potent effect on the kids who had internet e-mail when they were ten years old or younger, don't remember operating systems prior to Windows 95, never saw an Apple IIe or IIc... It's interesting stuff but it's not "hilarious"...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jimstapleton (999106)
      620K RAM + a 20Gig hard drive, there's an odd system.

      Was there any non-mainframe computer that could use that little memory with that large of a disk?

      Or did you me 20Meg?
      • I just want to know how the hell he found RAM chips which weren't sold in increments of at least 8Kb. I couldn't, which is why I had to choose between 512 and 640K of RAM back in the dark ages.

    • 20 meg hard drive doesn't sound that old. Hell, my second computer only had a 10 meg hard drive. My first one didn't even have a hard drive.

      And I'm sure I'll be out-geeked here by some guy who's first computer used punch-cards.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by GeckoX (259575)
        Never underestimate the persistence of the pre-pubescent teen that has the ability to amuse themselves. Think 'fart sniffing' of the digital age.

        Yes, it's sad really. And nothing can be done to make them stop or go away. Respond, and you reinforce their immaturity. Don't respond and you reinforce their immaturity. Ignore and they'll try harder. Confront and they'll try harder still.

        They're really just cries for 'mommy' after all. Poor lost souls ;)

      • Why do you people keep doing this?

        One word: Shitcock [penny-arcade.com].

    • Re:I would kill for one of those! (Score:4, Informative)

      by G27 Radio (78394) on Friday June 15 2007, @01:05PM (#19521973) Homepage
      An acoustic coupler was a (probably 300 baud) modem. Rather than plugging it into a jack, you would dial-up the other modem with your phone, then place the handset into the coupler and turn on your carrier.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by realmolo (574068)
      You kids.

      Do a Google search for "acoustic coupler" and educate yourself. That ad isn't bamboozling anybody.

    • Re:I would kill for one of those! (Score:4, Informative)

      by KokorHekkus (986906) on Friday June 15 2007, @01:11PM (#19522069)

      Apparently, by "acoustic coupler" they mean "telephone". Goes to show that bamboozling unsuspecting consumers with high-tech talk has been around as long as the technologies themselves!
      Oh, the historyless youth of today! *dives into a lived in a shoebox on the motorway rant for 5 minutes*. ;-)

      Actually, the acoustic coupler is the cradle that the handset is inserted in. The microphone and speaker of the handset is then isolated from outside noise with rubber seals and have a corresponding speaker respectivly microphone. So the computer become acoustically coupled to the telephone net and not electrically. Now get off my lawn. Mumble mumble muble.

    • Re:I would kill for one of those! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Brett Buck (811747) on Friday June 15 2007, @01:15PM (#19522117)
      >Apparently, by "acoustic coupler" they mean "telephone".
      >Goes to show that bamboozling unsuspecting consumers with
      >high-tech talk has been around as long as the technologies
      >themselves!

              Snot-nosed punk.

            The acoustic coupler was the cradle into which you inserted the telephone handset so the modem could use the speaker and microphone to acoustically transmit the data. We still have some around my place of business and they still work and are in occasional use. See how your high-falutin' iPhone works 40 years from now.

            One thing you also might not be aware of is that at the time, you couldn't OWN a telephone - they all belonged to ATT/Ma Bell. In fact that was more-or-less true into the late 70's/early 80s. And they were all identical designs (actually there were two different designs but completely standardized) so your coupler would work with any of them.

              Brett

             
    • an acoustic coupler was a device that you put on the phone head piece, to receive and transmit the audio signal, and transform them (back) into electrical signals for your modem, which didn't have that capability built into it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by LMacG (118321)
      Damn kid. You made me break my self-imposed rule of not clicking through to computerworld's ad-impression inflation articles, and I come back to find that my fellow old fogies have given you a good schoolin' on what an acoustic coupler is anyway. Remember, all phones (in the US at least) back in the day were made by the Western Electric division of AT&T (the real AT&T, not the rebranded SBC), and so it was easy to know just what size and shape to make those rubber cups.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jellomizer (103300) *
      Yes we know technology progresses. But it is not funny because of the age/under power of the tecnology but the advertising used to describe it. These system were advertised like they can do anything. Todays modern computers are advertised of just doing things better then their old version. As well the prices, Today say they have a 20 Terra byte storage solution that costs 10k-12k they will not be advertising it in PC World, or in those type of adds and they definatly wont be giving the cost. The level

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