I don’t usually link to huge collections of images focused on one theme unless I’m sending examples of potential frost maiden outfits to my LARP clan. However, this is too good to pass up: this is a set of 30 vintage PC ads featuring some of the iconic images of my childhood, the equivalent of faded old Playboy page (it was an interview with Norman Mailer) you tore out and hid in a copy of Hoyle’s Rules Of Games and suddenly rediscovered years later while you’re at home cleaning out your old closet (true story). It produces, in short, an admixture of frisson and nostalgia that geeks love.
The images include Think Different ads from Apple along with some highbrow commentary on Bill Clinton and some amazing VGA graphics. I always loved mid 1980s PC design, especially the Frog-esque HP below with its bold horizontal lines and futuristic airbrushing that is supposed to signal “high tech” but really screams “underemployed matte painter fired from the set of Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.“
You can check out all of the ads here.
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