Britain can still find an extra byte

Here's an advert from the curiously-named Computer Ancilliaries Limited, for what at first appear to be two of its machines - the British-built Caltext Word Processor and the Caltext Micro - but which were actually built by LSI.

The first was another entrant in a popular sideline in the early microcomputer industry: the dedicated word processor. 

Prices for this type of machine - which were very often standard micros simply bundled with software and a printer - often reflected the belief that one of these could replace a number of real typists.

As such, it retailed for "just over £3,000", or about [[3000|1982]] in [[now]] money. It does however seem to come with a keyboard with an unfeasibly large number of function keys on it.

The second machine - the Caltext Micro, otherwise a rebranded LSI System M-Three, sometimes known as the LSI/3 - is a generic Z80-based CP/M micro but with communications built in and a Winchester hard disk option, with either 5MB, 10MB or 15MB capacity.

This retailed from £1,700 - about [[1700|1982]] in [[now]].