Tandon: The Magnifient Seven

This advert more than many sums up the state of the microcomputer industry in the latter half of the 1980s.

Instead of an actual variety of computers, like Commodore might have had with its VIC-20, Commodore 64 and maybe a few PET models - all at the same time - this advert from Tandon simply shows seven minor variations of the same thing.

Commodore's Chuck Peddle - one of the fathers of the PC, thanks to the Commodore PET and his 6502 microprocessor - ended up at Tandon after his previous company Sirius had gone into Chapter 11 at the end of 1984. The Sirius outsold the IBM PC in Europe until IBM finally managed to ship enough units over the Atlantic.

Tandon was just one of many IBM PC-compatible manufacturers around at the time, it however ended up becoming Europe's biggest clone producer, at least for a while. 

Its AT-compatible models ranged from an entry-level and floppy-based unit selling for £1,195 - about [[1195|1986]] in [[now]] - right up the the PCA40, with a 40Mb hard disk unit at £2,995 ([[2995|1986]]).