With PCjr, you can add options that haven't even been invented yet The PCjr, also know by its development code-name of "Peanut" - and variously as Hercules, Sprite, Pigeon and Pancake[source: "IBM's new baby", Personal Computer World, October 1983, p. 135] - was IBM's attempt to crack the home market, which at the time was mostly owned by the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum. The system provided an RF modulator so the Peanut could be plugged straight in to a television, as well as utilising an infra-red battery-powered keyboard, with an expected battery life of three months, so potential users could kick back on the sofa. Not that IBM was predicting conflicts with other infra-red devices like remote controls, but there was also a $20 cable kit available. The Peanut also came with "hot-plug" cartridge slots on the front, as well as a kind-of stacking plug-in module facility, where optional extras could be chained on to the side, much like it's possible to dangerously chain a load of New Zealand mains plugs together. The attempt failed, in part because of the shockingly-bad keyboard that shipped with the original machine - referred to as "a new standard for intentional product handicapping" by Byte Magazine[source: "Byte - the Small Systems Journal", June 1984, p. 297] - but also because it was expensive for a home machine, with the price being set high, or "horrendously over priced", according to PCN, to prevent cannibalisation of its big brother[source: "Peanut power", Personal Computer News, January 7th 1984, p. 18]. The Commodore 64 at the time of this advert was retailing for about £229 ([[229|1984]] in [[now]] money), whereas the PCjr was going out at $1000 - around [[666|1984]] in [[now]], or around three times the price - even when the Commodore had the same 40-character-per-line display and the same 64K memory as the entry-level Peanut - although the latter could be cajoled up to 640K by chucking more money at it. There was a cheaper entry-level version available, going out at around $669 (which would be reduced to $599 in the June '84 campaign), however the company admitted at the end of 1983 that only a small proportion of advertised "IBM PC-compatible" software would actually run on the cheapo version, and even then a bunch of those required an additional $75 Basic extension cartridge. Of the five programs announced by IBM specifically for the Peanut, only one actually worked on the basic model[source: "Software incompatibility", POCW, 24th November 1983, p. 5]. Sales had been slow since it was first launched in October 1983 - a month late, much to IBM's frustration. It was the same week as TI left the market, following a damaging all-out price-war with Commodore and others, revealing as it did so that it had never once made a profit in the personal computer business[source: "Bad times hit PC business", PCW, September 1983, p. 149]. IBM was hoping to produce 20,000 machines for the North American market by the end of 1983, with 300,000 the following year, however its own manufacturing capacity was being seriously stretched by the success of its bigger-brother PC. It was not therefore expected that the machine would even be available in the US in volume until well into 1984, and thanks to its NTSC-only TV output it was even longer before a UK version might make an appearance[source: "IBM announces Peanut Junior", POCW, 10th November 1983, p. 1,5]. This particular advert reflected an attempted "re-launch" of the Peanut with a reduced price - combined with a relaxing of its usual dealer terms, in order to "ease their burden of carrying stocks of unsold PCjrs"[source: "IBM to boost slow-moving jr", PCN, June 16th 1984, p. 3]. The updated machine finally came with a better "typewriter-style" keyboard, but it didn't help - the Peanut was canned in March 1985 and never even made it to the UK, which is just as well as it would have no doubt been eaten alive by Amstrad's offerings. It was all somewhat ironic as rumours of the PCjr, starting for at least a year before it finally launched caused a "peanut panic" that seriously impacted the sales of competitors leading up to the Christmas 1983 period, as people waited on IBM's new wonder machine[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PCjr][source: "Peanut power", Personal Computer News, January 7th 1984, p. 20].