Watford Electronics was a British computer electronics company. It was founded in 1972 in a bedroom belonging to brothers Nazir and Raza Jessa, and grew to become one of the best-known suppliers of microcomputers and micro peripherals during the 1980s. [1]
In the 1970s Watford Electronics sold components and kits, through advertising in electronics magazines, and a paper catalogue. They had one shop in Watford, but mostly traded as a mail-order company. [2]
In the early 1980s Watford Electronics expanded into the home computer market. It was particularly active in the BBC Micro scene, producing a variety of peripherals for the computer, as well as a version of the Disc Filing System. They sold their own hardware under the Aries brand. Watford Electronics gradually moved over to supporting the Wintel market in the 1990s. [1] In the 21st century, the company opened an online store, Savastore, but in 2007 Watford collapsed into administration. [3] Watford Electronics was then bought out by Globally Limited, and in April that year, the website became known as Saverstore. [4]
Sony Group Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional electronic products, the largest video game console company and the largest video game publisher. Through Sony Entertainment Inc, it is one of the largest music companies and the third largest film studio, making it one of the most comprehensive media companies, being the largest Japanese media conglomerate by size overtaking the privately held, family-owned Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, the largest Japanese media conglomerate by revenue.
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of Tandy Radio Shack, Z80 [microprocessor]. It is one of the earliest mass-produced and mass-marketed retail home computers.
Tandy Corporation was an American family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Tandy Leather was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store. By the end of the 1950s, under the tutelage of then-CEO Charles Tandy, the company expanded into the hobby market, making leather mocassins and coin purses, making huge sales among Scouts, leading to a fast growth in sales.
The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful; more than 1.5 million units were sold. In the United States it was initially sold as the ZX-81 under licence by Timex. Timex later produced its own versions of the ZX81: the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Timex Sinclair 1500. Unauthorized ZX81 clones were produced in several countries.
Magnavox is an American electronics company founded in the United States. Since 1974, it has been a subsidiary of Dutch electronics corporation Philips.
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globally. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog chips and embedded processors, which account for more than 80% of its revenue. TI also produces TI digital light processing technology and education technology products including calculators, microcontrollers and multi-core processors. The company holds 45,000 patents worldwide as of 2016.
A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit (CPU). It includes a microprocessor, memory and minimal input/output (I/O) circuitry mounted on a single printed circuit board (PCB). Microcomputers became popular in the 1970s and 1980s with the advent of increasingly powerful microprocessors. The predecessors to these computers, mainframes and minicomputers, were comparatively much larger and more expensive. Many microcomputers are also personal computers.
Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s.
Sir Clive Marles Sinclair was an English entrepreneur and inventor, best known for being a pioneer in the computing industry, and also as the founder of several companies that developed consumer electronics in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and was sold by mail order through advertisements there, in Radio-Electronics, and in other hobbyist magazines. The Altair is widely recognized as the spark that ignited the microcomputer revolution as the first commercially successful personal computer. The computer bus designed for the Altair was to become a de facto standard in the form of the S-100 bus, and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair BASIC.
IEEE 488 is a short-range digital communications 8-bit parallel multi-master interface bus specification developed by Hewlett-Packard as HP-IB. It subsequently became the subject of several standards, and is generically known as GPIB.
Aiwa (アイワ) is a consumer electronics brand owned and used by various companies in different regions of the world. American and other regions are owned by Chicago-based Aiwa Corporation. Towada Audio based in Tokyo owns rights in Japan and elsewhere and has been manufacturing Aiwa-branded products since 2017. In Mexico and other countries in Latin America, rights are owned by Audio Mobile Americas, S.A.
Acer Inc. is a Taiwanese multinational hardware and electronics corporation specializing in advanced electronics technology, headquartered in Xizhi, New Taipei City. Its products include desktop PCs, laptop PCs, tablets, servers, storage devices, virtual reality devices, displays, smartphones and peripherals, as well as gaming PCs and accessories under its Predator brand. Acer is the world's 6th-largest PC vendor by unit sales as of January 2021.
The Plessey Company plc was a British electronics, defence and telecommunications company. It originated in 1917, growing and diversifying into electronics. It expanded after the Second World War by acquisition of companies and formed overseas companies.
Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was originally incorporated in 1973 as Westminster Mail Order Ltd, renamed Sinclair Instrument Ltd, then Science of Cambridge Ltd, then Sinclair Computers Ltd, and finally Sinclair Research Ltd. It remained dormant until 1976, when it was activated with the intention of continuing Sinclair's commercial work from his earlier company Sinclair Radionics, and adopted the name Sinclair Research in 1981.
AST Research, Inc. was a personal computer manufacturer, founded in Irvine, California, in 1980 by Albert Wong, Safi Qureshey and Thomas Yuen. In the 1980s, AST designed add-on expansion cards, and toward the 1990s evolved into a major personal computer manufacturer. AST was acquired by Samsung Electronics in 1997, but was forced to close in 1999 due to a series of losses.
Evesham Technology was a computer manufacturing and retail company based in Evesham, Worcestershire, England. It began operations in 1983 and closed in 2008 following financial difficulties. It was a significant contributor to the United Kingdom's domestic computer and digital television market. Its assets grew to include a factory and warehouse complex, and a chain of 19 retail stores in towns and cities throughout the UK, with around 300 employees. The company was founded in 1983 by Richard Austin and Robert (Bob) Hitchcock as Evesham Micros, to be briefly known as Evesham.com and finally as Evesham Technology. Austin continued as chairman and controlling shareholder until the company and its much reduced, short-lived successor, Geemore Technology Ltd, went into liquidation.
Cromemco was a Mountain View, California microcomputer company known for its high-end Z80-based S-100 bus computers and peripherals in the early days of the personal computer revolution.
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers.
The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphasis on education, it was notable for its ruggedness, expandability, and the quality of its operating system. An accompanying 1982 television series, The Computer Programme, featuring Chris Serle learning to use the machine, was broadcast on BBC2.
