Vintage UK Computer & Video Game Adverts (Vol.1)
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- Опубликовано: 15 июл 2024
- Vintage computer and video gaming adverts from British TV, hand-picked for this compilation with cleaned-up audio & video. Check out the playlists on my channel page for more vintage ad compilations:
/ retrosteveuk
Chapter Markers:
00:00 Atari VCS (from Ingersoll)
00:32 Atari 400 (Learn French)
01:02 Atari VCS (Generous Dad)
01:32 CBS Coleco Vision (Willie Rushton)
02:33 Atari VCS (Morecambe & Wise Party)
03:15 Atari Computers (Future 2040 Museum)
03:47 Vectrex (Jackie Stewart)
04:17 Atari VCS (The #1 Video Game)
04:48 The Home Computer Course
05:19 Hunchback From Ocean
05:50 Oric Atmos (Large Memory)
06:21 Commodore 64 (Mouse & Elephant)
06:52 Input Magazine
07:24 Toshiba MSX (Hello Tosh)
07:55 Sinclair Spectrum +3 (Teen's Bedroom)
08:26 Sega Master System (Plug Me Into A Sega)
08:57 Sega Pirate TV (Pussy Cat Food)
09:08 Game Boy (The Adult World)
09:39 Nintendo SNES (Street Fighter II)
10:10 Amiga 500 (Batman / Class Of The 90s)
10:21 Sega Megadrive (Cyber Razor Cut)
11:22 Amiga (Sunshine On A Rainy Day)
11:53 Sega Megadrive (The Ultimate Machine)
12:23 Amiga CD32 (Cyber Brain Experiment)
13:25 PlayStation (S.A.P.S.)
14:25 End Card Links 
Развлечения
I was once punched by a kid who said I was staring at him. I was actually staring at the colecovision he had under his arm.
Many an hour spent waiting for the Spectrum games to load!
I feel very privileged to have grown up through this era. Born in the late 70s, my entire 80s and 90s were filled with endless hours of laughs playing games with friends. All crowded around a small 14" CRT telly playing whichever new game had just hit the shelves.
Going out to pick a game with family or friends was a treat itself. Looking at screenshots, reading the manual and deciding if a game was worth the price. Great times.
I cannot argue with that! 😁
i was born 1974. So glad to grow up with the Arcades, computers and consoles as they happened. My first and true love. Atari 2600.
Its unbelievable how expensive computers were. £580 for an Amiga 500. Imagine going back in time with a PS5 and saying to yourself here you can have this for the same price.
My God I feel old watching this !
Great days mate. Wish I could go back,
Wow! A good way of observing how these things evolved from the humble Atari, through to the Sega Mega drive and PlayStation. 2040 Advert 3:40 "please sir, what's an office?" WFH anyone?
Yeah, that 2040 ad kinda nailed it.
The humble pong binatone orange and black console tennis, squash and football game was the first of the humble tech. Bop, bop, beep.(I have one but I left the batteries in it for years and it now just looks good but don't work) Atari was the first decent games console I think. It was also fecking expensive .
Wow, that Atari computer advert at 3:45 is strangely prophetic, what with the shift to working from home and all that.
I remember getting my Atari 2600 and a Big Trak for XMas 1981. Best presents ever.
I'm 61. Great times. I had several of these computers. The ads really take you back. Graphics came second to gameplay. Cheers.
"The Degenatron...I'LL NEVER GO TO SCHOOL AGAIN!!!"
I'm 56 so grow up in this era . I remember my gran asked me which i wanted for xmas a Atari 2600 or a Philips Videopac console G 7000 i chose the G7000 still have it and still working
My step-son has a Videopac. He loves the retro stuff, and he's only 37. His wife calls him a 1970s throwback. 🤣
Was the VideoPac popular in the UK? It sounds like the first true console wars.
@@fictionalmediabully9830 Yes it was and i totally agree with you
After pong and simon i never saw any of these ads i was out singing in my band playing the first soace invaders abd fiwn the seaside arcades ,i missed out a bit
Made my weekend steve another year older today took me straight back to 80s
Watching this was an absolute treat. I'm not going to say that I didn't shed a tear watching this. Long gone is the innocence of video gaming, back in the day when it was pure. The memories live on. I wish I could go back and do it all again.
Same here. If we knew then what we know now.
Oh twaddle. I was gaming then and I'm gaming now. So many games of so many kinds now. Games are better than ever!
The old ones are still with us thanks to the FPGA technology with the MiSTer or Analogue consoles and flash cartridges like Krikzz Everdrive 😀
@@SproutyPottedPlant I went down the RetroPie rabbit hole.
Antstream keeps my retro fun alive
The Amiga cartoon classics advert always puts a lump in my throat 😎😍
True video game classics from days gone by excellent thanks for uploading 👍
Oh my god - I remember the Home Computer Course, I wonder if my Dad still has them, somewhere?
A great selection of adverts. I bet you didn't know about how the very first advert in your collection inspired a sketch in Andrew Marshall and David Renwick's _End of Part One_ . In a 1980 episode, the Atari advert forms the basis of a spoof advert for _The LWT Comedy Sausage Machine_ . It is in an episode that takes the proverbial about out of _Larry Grayson's Generation Game_ and the race to boost Saturday night viewing figures.
You are correct. I did not know that.
Quality, I never knew Morecambe and Wise were pushing Atari.
A lot of these adverts were when I was too young but classic to see
Brilliant mate.
Great compilation
Hey, this video is amazing 😺👍!
In fact, i have the Atari 2600 games on my
PlayStation 2 in the compilations called
ATARI ANTHOLOGY and
ACTIVISION ANTHOLOGY.
And after i saw the games from Ocean,
I admit, that i still own the original
Commodore 64 and Amiga computers + games 😺👍🕹️🕹️.
And that Amiga commercial is a legendary 😺👍.
I even have the Commodore 64 games on the tapes and disks and one module game
INTERNATIONAL SOCCER.
These old games even inspire me to draw my own comic fan arts 😺👍.
And i was born in the summer of 1983.
Thanx for showing this awesome video of the old legendary classic games 😺👍.
Greetings from Vantaa, Finland 🇫🇮.
That International Soccer cartridge must be quite common - I have one, even though I don't have a Commodore 64!? I'm not sure how I managed that. 😂
Nostalgia smashes me in the face. I remember buying games from the toy store every month together with a friend like it was yesterday. He for his Megadrive and Gameboy. Me for the Super Nintendo and Gameboy. Great times. (wipes away a tear)
Man the past is great for nostalgia, and makes the future seem scary, but it also shows the promise of what wonders may come.
As an American born in 1977 this is so cool to see. Thanks a bunch!
You're welcome! 👍
1970 was better you were conceived in 69
Atari Baby.
Cheers for the upload, mate👍. Takes me back.
From the Master System advert onwards, I remember all of them.
I am a dinosaur on the gaming scene now but I grew up playing most of these and proud of it. A much simpler time before DLC, season passes and microtransactions.
Ahhhh sweet Steve nice one gonna share this with my gaming crowd for sure thanks buddy personal fave too oldskool consoles and pc's
PlayStation ads were amazing back in the 90s
Your doing amazing work Steve, sooo glad I found your channel 👍
We try! 😁
Love what you did here niiiiiice 💯♥️
Atari games starting at £18 in the late 70's early 80's, weren't no small change. That was pretty expensive by todays standards. I love those videos! I remember my brother typing in the basic programs from Input magazine, not sure if I ever saw any working games though! I remember all my friends wanting a SNES with SF2.
I learned to program using the Input magazines. Had the full set! Never got into the macine code side of things, though. I've laways regretted that.
SF2 for the SNES was 199 Gulden (about 150 US dollar) But working at a flower farmer with minimum wage for a week or 2 to afford Street Fighter II was definitely worth it.
@Alex Mit can’t buy mushy peas and chips for 35 quid these days
Fsntastic compilation superbly done,fantastic
Lovely comment, cheers .. and Merry Christmas! 🙂🎄
Thanks for this video, I had a Atari as a kid brought back some happy memories
I have an Atari 2600 on a display shelf in my spare room, and you know what? That sucker still works! Built to last! 😁
In 1991 at my work boss’ home office I noticed their latest home computer . he gave a brief demonstration of its capabilities namely a program that allowed you to make it speak which I didn’t completely believe so Nige asked me “ give it something to say Mork “ I immediately tapped the keys the word “ bollocks “ . The computer duly spoke back in a deep tone “ BOO LLXXXSS “ - in spite of being mere skilled manual workers we realised the machine may understand better the phonetic spelling - ‘ B O. LUKs ‘ or ‘ BU LUCKS ‘ & more until cracking its interpretation of our sound by clearly announcing “ BOLLOKS “ nice & clearly.
Having grown up through countless tech innovations throughout the 60s 70s & 80s we both felt a huge sense of achievement in meeting or testing & giving a practical application for the capabilities of leading edge office technology .
On recounting this event to my son a few years back , he refused to believe such software was available at an affordable price in 1991 but I didn’t imagine this event because the pair of us were hooting like a pair of schoolboys as the computer loudly repeated it’s new knowledge at our command .
Brilliant. I can confirm, in the early 90s, my Commodore Amiga 500 (priced at £499) was able to say any swear words I gave it, just by typing them into a text window. Hours of fun! 🤣
Funny, I don't remember Charles Lawton jumping knights, swinging over fiery pits, outfoxing fireballs and dodging arrows to rescue Esmeralda!
Yeah, THAT movie would have been awesome! 😆
Love it great video
Morecambe & Wise advertising video games... 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
Ahh, memories! :')
Who'd have thought back then we'd all be walking about with small devices called mobile phones with unbelievable technology and games etc available with touch of an app ..
The kids next door had a Vectrex when I was a kid, they were excellent.
We nearly had one. Reduced to £40 at Woolworths. We rushed up town to get one and they'd sold out! Neighbours managed to get one before us. I was always SO jealous.
I remember the Cyber Razor Cut ad, wanted a mega drive after seeing it!
That commercial set in 2040 turned out to be almost prophetic, especially after the pandemic with a kid saying, "What's an office?" I wonder how many of the Vectrex were sold in the UK or elsewhere. Google tells me it wasn't sold very much in the US because the market crashed for videogames n 1983. I had one of the first GameBoys. It basically was just a way to eat batteries with a little bit of playing time.
I nearly owned a Vectrex. We heard Woolworth were selling them off for £40. Rushed up there and they'd just sold the last one! What made it worse was the next day one of the neighbour's kids was showing off his new Vectrex his dad had got him for £40.
I got a Vectrex for Christmas in the early 80's, and actually still have it along with the original hand written receipt! I only had a few games to begin with, but remember going with my mum to the shop when she heard they were being sold off cheap and got nearly every game released, along with a spare controller and light pen. I still play it now and again.
@@phantomracer1050 Not gonna lie .. I'm a bit jealous! 🤗
All my friends had Atari 2600s, I had a Phillips Videopac. It was crap. I later upgraded to an MB Electronics Vectrex, which was marginally better.
The Vectrex seemed like magic at the time with it's built-in vector screen. Like having an arcade machine at home.
@@RetroSteveUK I have to admit I ove my Switch and my gaming laptop, but I wanted a Vectrex!
I love how some of these ads say the price is 'around' or 'about!'
Yeah, probably a recommended retail price thing. Prices did vary in different shops.
Great vide! Have just subscribed to your channel...
Brilliant x
It's interesting watching the slow evolution in technology and design of games consoles from the early 80's up to the mid-90's, ending with the PlayStation. People naturally tend to look back with rose-
tinted glasses at those times regarding them as the halcyon days, wishing it was still like that today. But it's clear from watching the video the industry felt differently and didn't stop after the releases, for example, of the SNES and Mega Drive, thinking that's good enough for the consumer, and focused instead on other products like televisions and phones. I for one am glad they continued and are still continuing to make advances. If we showed the videogames players of the mid-80's what we have today, they'd be blown away, thinking science fiction became science fact! 😊
Wow that was crazy consoles I e never heard of before
5:19 I used to love Hunchback!
In fact most Ocean games were gems back then on the ZX spectrum along with Ultimate.
3:34 - "what's an office?" - that is almost prophetic!
This is great archive material. Strangely enough the only one I vaguely remember is the CD32. I'm pretty sure that's because these ad's never targeted me when I spent all my spare TV time on my computers anyway. Probably broadcast before the "watershed".
I totally remember all the really good hilarious adverts like for e.g. Hamlet cigars, Carlsberg, Heineken beers. Also the excellent adverts for Kia Ora and Um Bongo which would get someone a hate crime prison sentence nowadays. The OXO adverts with Lynda Bellingham were pretty memorable too.
I remember some of the computer & game adverts, probably from watching children's TV, even into my teens when I was probably too old for it. 😆
I remember Sega releasing a really long 3 minute version of the mega cd pirate tv ad back in 1994
I remember a lot of those ads going out at the time. Big ad campaign.
I had a ZX Speccy 48k and ,later, the +2.My local youth club and friends had a Toshiba MSX,Amstrad CPC and a C64 between them,great machines. But ,for me anyway, the Speccies were the best.
I started on the 48k Spectrum. Moved up through Speccy +2 / Sega Master System / Amiga 500 / Amiga 1200 over the years before getting my first PC when they started becoming affordable.
No you are wrong ;) The MSX was the best :)
@@randy7894 Actually, I kind of agree. The MSX and the Amstrad were both great machines, but they were dragged down by lazy Spectrum ports. In the right hands, those two computers could have given us some amazing gaming experiences back in the 80s.
@@RetroSteveUK Definitely. MSX owners were spoiled by sprite capabilities and a great basic interface.
Personally I liked the speccy ports quite a lot. Limitations of the 2 color per charachter gave an artistic look to loading screens and games. Both are great systems if i'm honest :)
Sunshine on a rainy day 🎶
Totally! 😁
My childhood 😎
Atari thought they were being clever with "Please sir, what's an office?" set in an imaginary 2040, but they may well have been on the mark with their prediction there
I have wondered myself what the thinking process was behind that at that time. Without the hindsight we have now, it doesn't really make much sense.
Hell. I'll be that guy in the video museum with the tash waxing on about my home pc in 2040 . Except it wont be an Atari it will be a speccy :P And the bit where the kid asks "sir what's an office" looks like its coming true.
I watched a lot of tv back in these days and I don't remember commodore and amiga commercials. I know I would have wanted one. lol
Love it. Nostalgia is good but to own many old computers and consoles and electronic games like I do numbs the pain. Still play em. My pride n joys are my Speccies and C64s. I have also an aldi c64g also 3 5.25 floppy disc drives with some 3000 games and various programmes. Thanks for sharing.
I have a few classic machines too, but they sit on the shelf looking pretty. I do all my retro gaming on a Raspberry Pi setup now.
@@RetroSteveUK not as good as playing them with a quick shot or quick shot 2 joystick
@@richhughes7450 I'll give you that, but it comes down to personal preference at the of the day.
I still call the/any playstation the bagel toaster. OLD SKOOL.
Lol Steve I remember the Atari video games console the one I had was the during the early 80s was the Atari 2600 with cartridge games like pacman and Tetris and many more I can’ remember lol 😂
Sega always had strange ads
I still have a 48k Spectrum and an Acorn Electron in the Attic 😂
I have a 128k +2 Speccy, but the real iconic one is the 48k rubber key model. I'd like to pick one up at some point to have on display, even if it doesn't work.
@@RetroSteveUK I started with a 48k Rubber key and later added a Plus Keyboard when the membrane went from playing Daley Thompsons Decathlon, but that eventually died. The one in Attic is a Rubber keyboard original I picked up at a Jumble Sale years ago, it did work but has been untouched for 20 years plus 😂
@@gregphillips.1312 Man, I remember begging my parents to upgrade to a Spectrum Plus from a standard 48k. It was a definite no, and in hindsight I'm glad they stopped me. It would have been another £150+ for a solid keyboard and a reset button. 🤣
Catches Ad ever Hello Tosh got a Toshiba.
It's an FST!! 🎶
Our first was a machiine with three in-built games; pong/badmintonn and football, tink it was made by Grandstand. Then I had a Vic 20, C64, Nes, Megadrive, Amiga 1000, Snes, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Xbox 360 and now a Switch.
We had the pong machine. Must've been around 1979/80. Black and orange Binatone machine with two paddle controls.
Did Commodore ever make a TV advert that *wasn't* cheesy AF?
If they did I haven't seen it.
Amazing compilation, really cool! That Atari song, so embarrassing! And one would think Sega would have had really cool, factual, tech-based ads for the mighty Megadrive, but back then, they didn't realise how naff these ads were! What strikes me is the pricing, wow it really was expensive then. Makes a console now at £450 seem pretty good..
I remember the SNES one where the human player turned from a normal guy into a robot
I had a Commodore 16😅! Used to take half hour to load a game(cassette)😬🙄
Then you sometimes get loading error and have to rewind start again
I think I have a whole load of "Inputs" somewhere.
HAIL VECTREX!
The ad men were right, a lot of that kit did end up in museums.
and I thought my IBM Aptiva desk tower with 8 gigs of memory was so fantastic in '95
Morecambe and Wise did an ad for Atari?? Wow.
Missile Command - a true classic. Infuriating, but a classic.
My first exposure to it was Armageddon on the Spectrum. It came free with my first 48k Speccy.
"Please sir..what's an office?" how prophetic!!
Offices still exist.
kid in 1980: Dad can I have an Atari 400 to learn French?
Dad: well... if you can learn foreign languages with that computer, yes
kid (to himself): great! countless hours of missile command action!!
Atari 2600 was my very first console. I remember waking up on Christmas morning and being terrified to go into the sitting room as there were some strange lights and what sounded like thunder. As a kid it scared the bejesus out of me. Turned out my parents had left the console set up with missile command playing. Broke some amount of those crappy Atari joysticks back in the day.
@@aaron1182 Yeah, those joysticks. Iconic, but terrible to use. I still have a VCS but I leave the joysticks in the cupboard & use a Megadrive pad instead. These days I have RSI in my hands, & those stiff Atari joysticks absolutely wreck my fingers.
and now he sounds like Robbie the Robot when speaking french.
@@RetroSteveUK hand grips can help with RSI 😃 & strengthening the bones & muscles of the fingers & hands ✋️
I started with the Atari 2600, jumping to the Commodore 64 blew my mind! Getting those game tapes free with magazines, then reading the mag while watching the rainbow colored loading screen. Load, ready, run. And commercials like these were entertainment alone!
Once the amiga came out and with the floppy disc
Solved alot of the tape loading errors of the zx sprectrum and commodore 64
Had the ZX Spectrum and collected The Home Computer course Mags
I had a full set of Input magazines in their binders.
Compared to games today you can see why we was always out doing something else 😆
Eric Morcambe would get nowhere on missle command holding the joystick like that
That actually sounds like an Eric joke .. "He'll never sell any ice cream going at that speed." .. 🤣
@@RetroSteveUK ta, nice one!!
Never even heard of the Vectrex system. On eBay now for £500
The Amiga, best game machine *ever*
I love how the TV is actually a car
I liked to think it was modified by Doc Brown using Delorean parts. 😁
I think that’s Ed Helms from The Hangover at the end for PlayStation
Now I do like the SNEs street fighter 2 one
those ataris where very expensive but 40 yrs later omg lok at the differance but omg the price
3:41
>What's an office
This throwaway joke is becoming reality it's scary
I wonder what whoever wrote that line was thinking of and what they thought might happen in the future?
Imagine being conned into buying a Vectrex and actually believing it worth the money.
F'Me, those things were awesome at the time! My neighbours had one & let me play on it. Magic! Like a little arcade machine at home & those smooth vector graphics were like nothing else.
Wanted an atari back in 1980
Never got one
Years later saw one at a car boot for a couple of quid 😅
I found mine in a box someone had thrown out with their rubbish, about 25 years ago. Still works today.
@@RetroSteveUK problem is they don't play in new HD 4k tvs
@@simonfootie6255 I've kept a couple of old TVs so I can still play on the old consoles, although the consoles can easily be modded now to work with new TVs.
@@RetroSteveUK yes that's an option
But on new tvs they dont look great even with adaptor
I was hoping for a Rob the robot one from the Nes!
Yeah, I remember that. Hopefully it'll turn up & I can put it in a future collection.
The innocence of video gaming has long gone. Remember when we just hooked up our systems to the television and played? And all this WITHOUT micro-transactions and other money grabbing nonsense we have now. I grew up in this era and it was very very special. We kids, back then, really were privileged to have such entertainment at our fingertips. Who would have known, back then, that home video gaming would become a boom industry raking in billions?
Now, it's a cut throat business. Nowhere like the innocence of yesteryear that we had. Granted, the graphics today blow away anything we had before. Nevertheless, we had that certain 'something' that we simply do not get now, when it comes to video gaming.
Always the same when an industry grows .. The suits take over and make it about profit margins.
@@RetroSteveUK Absolutely right, on that.
That commercial about PlayStation makes it sound as though the PlayStation one is deadly to people lmao
When really it's just a harmless bagel toaster.
Don't forget, all these were DOS games, well before a Windows OP system.
I was a Sega boy, but I do remember looking enviously at the SNES when Street Fighter II came out as it was such a good port. Only having eight characters and it costing £70 at launch helped ameliorate that, though. (No idea to this day how I persuaded my parents to buy me the in-most-ways superior Street Fighter II SCE for the Mega Drive, which was about the same price. Both "bargains", of course, compared to Super Street Fighter II on the SNES , which was £90, I'm sure.)
I had Amiga when the SNES & Megadrive were about. Games were sub-par in comparison but I liked the creative tools we got to play with on computers.
@@RetroSteveUK I actually sold my Mega Drive to part-fund my A1200, with my parents paying the rest. Some games were worse on the Amiga, but some were better or just didn't exist elsewhere - I can't begin to count the hours I spent playing Syndicate, Sensible World of Soccer or Frontier: Elite II. And probably don't want to, because it'd be embarrassingly high 😆
@@El-Ritmo Not to mention the, eh .. disk swapping opportunities, although in hindsight that's pretty much what killed off the Amiga games industry. 🪦
3:42 fortelling WFH :D
Oh man, this is super nostalgic.
I'll always be a sega boy at heart. The master system and mega drive are my two favourite console's, closely followed by the Saturn.
I adored my Nintendo game boy too.
I did have a commodore and amstrad cpc464 as a kid, but they paled in comparison to the console's.
The Ministry of Silly Walks approves this video.
This is good to know. 🚶♂️👍
As like today I guess. PlayStation camp or X box. Back then it was Spectrum camp or Commodore 64.