Camputers Lynx (1983)

Introduced March 1983

The Camputers Lynx was a British home computer released in March 1983, slotting into the category of 1980s microcomputers which were pretty good, but not good enough to succeed. The Lynx was a relative powerful computer that boasted some impressive specifications for its time, but it failed to gain widespread popularity due to various factors, including its relatively high price and the dominance of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 in the UK home computer market.

Camputers Lynx

The Lynx was designed and manufactured by Camputers Ltd, a UK-based company that was founded in 1976 by a group of computer enthusiasts. The Lynx was the company's first and only product, and it was initially launched as a business computer. However, it was later marketed as a home computer to compete with the best-selling Spectrum and other similar computers.

Inside was a Zilog Z80 processor, which was a popular choice for home computers in the 1980s. The computer had 48KB of RAM (eventually expandable to 192 KB), plus 32KB of ROM with the operating system and BASIC interpreter. The 256 x 248 8-colour display was impressive for the time, but the Lynx’s graphics were conversely extremely slow. Audio capabilities were better than the Spectrum, but not as good as the BBC Micro or Commodore 64.

Undoubtedly, the Lynx was a good-looking machine. It was potentially a more professional system than the Spectrum, and it showed great promise overall but despite significant efforts to market the machine and many upgrades and relaunches, it probably only sold in the tens of thousands – almost all of them in the UK.

The reasons for the failure of the Lynx were also common to other rival systems. The home computer market of the 1980s was becoming very crowded, and the Lynx just didn’t have the software it needed, which combined with the quirky video meant that it wasn’t quite good enough to be a major player.

Camputers quickly failed as a business, going bust in 1984. A subsequent takeover and more than one relaunch attempt also came to nothing. Subsequently the Lynx became something of a cult system, with models in good working condition selling for hundreds of pounds.

It was a good system with its own strengths and weaknesses, but it wasn’t a GREAT system and some of its competitors were. Like the Dragon 32, it might have been a success in different circumstances. In the end it ended up on the heap of “might have been” computers that characterised the early 1980s market.

Image credit:
Retro-activity via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0

Xerox Alto (1973)

Released March 1973

The early days of personal computing including a lot of false starts. Ideas that should have propelled their progenitors to dominance often failed to hit the mark. One such company with great ideas but limited success was Xerox.

Still know today for its photocopiers and printers, Xerox decided decades ago that that future of the office was paperless. Because Xerox was very much wedded to paper, the idea of a paperless future would amount to nothing less than extinction. But throughout this part of its history, Xerox was torn between the forward-looking technologists and the backwards-looking pragmatists.

Somewhere out of this internal struggle, the Xerox Alto was born in 1973. It was the first computer system designed from the start to use a graphical user interface, inspired to a large degree by Doug Engelbart’s Mother of All Demos five years previously. Xerox engineers realised that at some point computer systems would move beyond the realm of engineers in white coats to something that anyone could use, based in part around digitising everyday metaphors into skeuomorphic forms.*

Xerox Alto

The challenges of building a recognisably modern computer system in 1973 were immense. One major one was the lack of microprocessors – the Motorola 68000, Intel 8086, MOS 6502 and Zilog Z80 were still years away. Instead, Xerox engineers use four Texas Instruments 74181 ALUs  to do the hard work. Added to this was up to 512Kb of RAM and a 606 x 808 pixel monochrome display and a 3-button mouse. One of the most distinctive features was the large 12” portrait display that emulated a piece of paper, but less obvious at the time was the Alto’s Ethernet interface that allowed it to talk to other systems.

A lot of the Alto’s UI comprised of tables and text rather than icons and graphics. Still, it was good enough for preparing documents, drawing pictures, designing integrated circuits and playing games. These were all potentially useful things to do, but the Alto was fearsomely expensive – costing an equivalent of $125,000 in 2023 money.

The Alto was massively ahead of its time – it would take another decade or so for the technologies to start to become affordable. It also wasn’t a sales success, with only around 2000 units shipping, including those used by Xerox themselves.

Despite the small numbers built, the Alto was massively influential. The Apple Lisa and later the Macintosh were directly influenced by the work happening at Xerox, and more indirectly Windows and just about every other graphical user interface was too. For Xerox, the Alto was eventually succeeded by the Star in 1981, but this was only a limited success. Xerox itself was never fully wedded to the idea of the paperless office, and by the mid-1980s the pendulum was swinging back to the predictable markets of photocopies and printers.

Today the Alto exists in a few museums and private collections, it never was the sort of thing you could take home. Sadly the Alto and Star are largely forgotten, despite pioneering many of the technologies we take for granted today. Being first to market does not always means being successful, and that was certainly the case with Xerox...

* We apologise for the overuse of ancient Greek.

Image credits:
Michael Hicks via Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 2.0

IBM PC/XT vs Compaq Portable (1983)

Introduced March 1983

The launch of the original IBM PC in 1981 cause a fundamental shift in the desktop computing market. Out of the apparent chaos of a myriad of (mostly) startup companies offering business computers came the biggest player in the market – IBM. The original PC wasn’t the best, most innovative or cheapest product on the market by a long shot, but IBM was a serious player that business had heard of and it was an immediate sales success.

The original IBM PC had some significant shortcomings, in particular there was no hard disk and the limited expansion slots filled up very quickly. The upgraded PC/XT added a 10MB hard drive as standard, plus three extra slots, more RAM (up to 640Kb) and ROM and it upgraded the storage of the floppy drive to a maximum of 360Kb.

It wasn’t a huge upgrade over the original, but it addressed the shortcomings of the previous model well. It was probably the computer that IBM should have launched to begin with, but at over $7500 at launch, the PC/XT was really expensive.

IBM PC/XT

Uniquely for IBM, the architecture of the PC was quite easy to copy. Buying in industry-standard components such as the Intel 8088 processor and making detailed hardware specifications available made it possible for other companies to make PC clones that could be better and cheaper at the same time, and Microsoft could sell you the same operating system – MS-DOS – that the PC ran to ensure compatibility. First out of the door was the Columbia MPC 1600, but more followed.

At about the same time, another trend for “luggable” all-in-one computers was starting, with the CP/M-based Kaypro II being a popular example. Texas-based Compaq Computer Corporation combined both a PC-compatible computer in the convenient form factor of a transportable machine to create the Compaq Portable, their first product.

“Portable” was a stretch, at 13 kilograms or 28 pounds it was not an easy thing to carry. Nonetheless, it could be moved easily without unplugging a vast number of cables and components. With the keyboard clipped into place, the Compaq Portable could fit into the overhead luggage compartments on a plane, or be easily placed into the boot of a car.

Compaq improved on the PC’s architecture in their own way, broadly similar to the PC/XT. There was no hard disk as standard, but users commonly added one. The Portable was also cheaper to get started with than the PC/XT. Despite being something of a niche product, the Compaq Portable sold tens of thousands of units in its first year, and it made Compaq Computer Corporation a very successful rival to IBM in the PC market.

Compaq Portable

IBM and Compaq duked it out in the market until the mid-2000s, with IBM eventually selling off its PC business to Lenovo and Compaq merging with HP.

Both machines were the ancestors of most personal computers in use today, crucially demonstrating that the PC platform could evolve over time rather than having to be completely replaced with a new model every couple of years. And although the PC/XT and Portable were not the first PCs, and now very much obsolete, they were highly significant in developing the market we see today.

Image credits:
Dmitry Brant via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
ctgreybeard via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0

Oric-1 (1983)

Introduced January 1983

If you were in the market for a home computer in Britain in 1983, there would typically be three models that most people would choose: the Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum or Acorn BBC Micro. There were other machines (such as the Dragon 32), and it did seem that this fast-growing market was ripe for more players.

One interested player was Tangerine Computer Systems, who had made the Microtan 65 some years earlier. Tangerine certainly had the technical skills to make a competitive machine, and seeing a gap in the market they set about creating the Oric-1 microcomputer, though a newly-formed subsidiary named Oric Products International.

Oric-1

The Oric-1 was very much aimed against the Spectrum end of the market, similarly priced and similar too in size. Based on a 6502 rather than a Z80, it was (like the Spectrum) available in 16Kb and 48Kb varieties – although a peculiarity of the hardware design meant that the latter actually had 64Kb of memory, the top 16Kb not be accessible without tinkering. The sound on the Oric was far better than on the Spectrum, using the popular AY-3-8910 chip. Four different graphics modes were available – more like the BBC than the Spectrum, and the inbuilt BASIC was pretty powerful as well. Last but not least, the chicklet keyboard had small, hard buttons which were much nicer to use than the Spectrum’s notorious “dead flesh” keyboard.

The main problem was bugs – the Oric-1’s ROM was full of them, and also the cassette interface was unreliable - which was a major problem for a home computer of the time. One other problem was that the promised peripherals – a printer interface, modem and floppy disk drive – ended up being later into production. Disappointments aside, it was a good system and sold at least a couple of hundred thousand units while it was on sale. 

Oric-1 and Oric Atmos

Oric struggled for money, but a takeover from a company called Edenspring Investments led to more money being available, leading to the improved Oric Atmos being launched in 1984. However, the home computer market was heading for a crash and Oric ended up in receivership – twice – before finally going bust in 1987. However, licensed cloned versions continued including the Bulgarian Pravetz 8D. A sad end, but of course today none of Acorn, Commodore or Sinclair are with us either so perhaps not unexpected.

Today the Oric-1 is an uncommon but collectable device, with prices for good systems being a couple of hundred pounds or so, the later Atmos commands higher prices and rarer derivatives more still. Perhaps in the end it wasn’t a significant machine, but there was

Image credits:
Rama via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0 FR
Martin Wichary via Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 2.0

Apple Lisa (1983)

Launched January 1983

In 1983 the Apple Computer Company was just seven years old, but had grown very rapidly on the back of strong sales of the Apple II. By the early 1980s though, the Apple II was looking increasingly out-of-date. In 1980 the Apple III was launched, designed to  fix many of the shortcomings of its predecessor, but it was a deeply unreliable and poorly-built product and was a sales disaster.

The launch of the IBM PC in 1981 saw Apple struggling in the business market, so it was very important that whatever they came up with next would be a success. Sadly for Apple, their next product – the Apple Lisa – ended up as another disaster, even if it did seem to hold great promise.

Apple Lisa 1

The key feature of the Lisa was the mouse-drive graphical interface, the computer unit itself was an elegant single-box design with an integrated 12 inch monitor. It looked very different in both hardware and software terms from the competition, and both the mainstream media and specialist press were very excited.

Development of the Lisa had started years earlier, at first with modest aims but quickly becoming influenced by the work that fellow Silicon Valley engineers at Xerox were doing with their Alto platform which was being developed into the Xerox Star. When Steve Jobs saw the Alto’s graphical interface he was highly impressed, and the Apple team sought to emulate and improve on it. The concepts of the mouse-driven user environment were not new - Doug Engelbart had demonstrated the concepts as far back as 1968 – but it was only really in the 1980s that computer hardware started to become affordable enough to make it a reality.

The mouse was still a novelty when the Apple Lisa was launched, as this cover from Personal Computer World shows

Unlike previous Apple models which were based on the 6502, the Lisa was built around a Motorola 68000, clocked at 5MHz along with one megabyte of RAM. Neither the CPU nor RAM were very fast, even by 1983 standards. The display was a 720 x 364 pixel black-and-white unit with no greyscale capabilities. Twin 5.25-inch variable speed floppy drives (known by the name “Twiggy”) offered a lot of storage, but were very unreliable. The Lisa was also designed to be used with a 5MB external hard drive, and a variety of printers were available.

The look and feel of the operating system was far in advance of everything outside of Xerox’s labs. Based largely around the file manager, it became the template for the OS used on the later Macintosh. A crude form of protected memory was available, but overall the operating system ran sluggishly on the hardware. The Lisa had a variety of office applications available, including a word processor, spreadsheet, graphical applications and utilities.

This may all sound very familiar because the Macintosh, launched a year later, also did many of the things that the Lisa did. But the Lisa is not the Mac’s predecessor, instead this ended up as a dead end which cost Apple a lot of money. Not only was the hardware and software unstable, but the price of the Lisa started at an eye-watering $9,995 in 1983 money (around $30,000 today). Any appeal that the Lisa may have had was undermined by the launch of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, which did most of the things the Lisa could do, but more reliably and at a quarter of the price.

The Lisa flopped, selling only about 10,000 units. A redesigned Lisa 2 in 1984 was cheaper, more reliable but more underpowered than the original. There was some interest from customers who wanted a device with a bigger display than the standard Mac, but the Lisa needed an emulator to run Mac software. In 1985 the final iteration of the Lisa was launched, as the Macintosh XL which proved to be at least of interest to consumers, but Apple ended up selling it at a loss.

Killed off by its own internal competition, a combination of cheap or untested components and an enormous price tag, the Lisa is one of the biggest failures in the history of Apple. Conversely the cut-down and more focussed version, the Macintosh, was one of the biggest successes. Today, a working Lisa system is very collectible and commands prices of thousands of dollars, although you are more likely to find the later Lisa 2 than the original.

Image credits:
Timothy Colegrove via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
Paul Downey via Flickr – CC BY 2.0

2022 – things that didn’t quite make the cut

We covered quite a bit of retro tech this year, but there are a few things we didn’t talk about that are still worth a mention.

Let’s start with the automotive world. One of the more unusual vehicles to ever be produced in quantity is the DUKW (colloquially called the “Duck”), a six-wheel drive amphibious vehicle designed during World War II and manufactured by General Motors from 1942 to 1945. Excelling in amphibious attacks and traversing beaches, the DUKW could carry supplies or troops in a wide variety of environments. 21,000 of these machines were built, and some are still in use as tourist attractions today.

Where the DUKW was a bit of a barge, the Volkswagen Phaeton – introduced in 2002 – was a different type of barge. A large luxury car, sharing some of its DNA with Bentleys, the Phaeton was a rare entry into the luxury car market for the Volkswagen marque. Elegant and very understated, the Phaeton was a very discrete vehicle which gained some fans, but most luxury buyers were not interested and it wasn’t a sales success even though production continued until 2016. Today, the Phaeton is an extremely inexpensive buy for what it is, but it can be prone to enormous garage bills if it goes wrong.

From real-world cars to a fictional one – the Knight Industries Two Thousand (or “KITT” for short) was one of the stars of the 1982 TV Show “Knight Rider”. Based on a Pontiac Trans Am, KITT featured its own AI system which was capable of self-driving, speech recognition and synthesis, in-car communications (all of which are available today) and… errr… well a load of stuff that frankly isn’t. 23 KITT cars were made for filming, but most of these were destroyed. A handful of originals survive, but you are most likely to come across a replica.

DUKW, Volkswagen Phaeton, KITT Replica

Computers and cars came together in a different way with the 1982 Namco game, Pole Position. One of the first 16-bit arcade games, Pole Position offered unrivalled gameplay for a racing game, usually coming in a sit-down version with a proper steering wheel, pedals and gear shifter. The highest-grossing game of 1983, the game was officially ported to post microcomputer platforms of the time with many unofficial clones. 

Gaming was big in 1982, one mostly forgotten console that was launched that year was the ColecoVision. Selling strongly at launch due the bundled Donkey Kong game, this Z80-based system faded quickly and was out of production by 1985. Quite collectable today, a ColecoVision in good condition with games and accessories can cost you several hundred pounds.

Games consoles became popular in the 1980s, but the very first console was the Magnavox Odyssey launched in 1972. The basic but playable games were enhanced with accessories such as cards, dice and screen overlays. 350,000 Odyssey systems were sold over three years, today these are also very collectable with prices ranging from hundreds to thousands of pounds.

Pole Position, ColecoVision, Magnavox Odyssey

Taking another step backwards, 1962 saw the world’s first computer-controlled factory running on the Ferranti Argus industrial computer platform. Argus was originally designed for military applications, but it found its true strength in running as an industrial controller. Development continued into the 1980s, seeing use in everything from oil production to telecommunications, and importantly also in controlling nuclear power stations where they are still in use today.

Another technology designed originally for military use was the frequency-hopping spread spectrum. The concept was originally patented in 1942 as a way of preventing radio-guided torpedoes from being jammed by the enemy. A paper tape in the torpedo and guidance system allowed the radio frequency to change in a predetermined way, avoiding enemy jamming. This technology eventually found itself into Bluetooth and WiFi communications. Although this all sounds very dry, the inventor was Austrian-born actress Hedy Lamarr, who in addition to being one of the greatest actresses of her era was also a talented inventor.

While we are on the subject of war and weapons, the Gatling Gun was the world’s first widely-used machine gun, in service from 1862 with the US Army and finding its way into use worldwide until the early 20th century. The Gatling Gun marked the beginning of industrialised warfare and a technological arms race that continues to this day.

1970s Ferranti Argus system, Hedy Lamarr, Gatling Gun

120 years later, 1982 saw another technological race as the computer systems evolved rapidly in every market from home users to research institutions. One of the leading companies of the time was Digital Equipment Corporation (usually known as “DEC” or just “Digital”). The DEC Rainbow was an attempt to compete for the same market as the IBM PC, running on both a Zilog Z80 and Intel 8088 processor, the Rainbow could run either CP/M or MS-DOS. Despite the “Rainbow” name, the machine was monochrome only by default, outputting to a monitor very similar to a VT220. Despite the support of one of the biggest names in the industry, it was not a success except for the iconic LK201 keyboard which was widely emulated.

Where the Rainbow was an attempt to create a new microcomputer from scratch, the DEC Professional was an attempt to shrink the PDP-11 into a desktop package. Although a promising idea, poor execution and market indifference let to its failure.

One of the more advanced machines of the time was the DISER Lilith, launched commercially in 1982 after being used as a research platform for a couple of years. Unusually, the Lilith ran Modula-2 and has a large portrait graphical display. Based in part on work done on the Xerox Alto, the Lilith was probably too advanced to be a sales success but remained influential, especially the mouse design which later influenced the first mice designed by Logitech.

If PDP-11s and the Lilith just weren’t powerful enough and you had very, very deep pockets you migth consider the Cray X-MP, launched in 1982 at an approximate starting price of $15 million. For that you got not only the fastest computer in the world, but also one of the most remarkable looks with a central processor core that looked like nothing else – complete with padded seats. The X-MP was a success, and there were a number of successors. Today, Cray is part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

DEC Rainbow, DEC Professional running as a VAX Conole, Lilith Prototype, Cray X-MP

The X-MP was a niche but successful product, as was the Bloomberg Terminal which was originally launched in December 1982. A specialist system aimed at stock market traders, the original terminal was a simple device that could connect to any type of financial data that Bloomberg could make available. Several generations followed, built on custom hardware and software. Today the Bloomberg terminal is still available, but the latest generation will cost you around $2000 per month.

Aimed at a rather broader market – which it failed to reach – the Jupiter Ace also ended up being popular with a very specific niche. Somewhat similar to the ZX81 in terms of hardware, the Ace had the unusual feature of running Forth as a programming language instead of BASIC. Forth was very well suited to simple computers, however it turned out that most customers wanted to learn BASIC instead. Despite making a splash at launch, sales were low and production ended in 1984. Today the Ace is very collectable with good examples selling for £1500 or even more.

1982 was a good year for computer systems that might have hit the big time had circumstances been different. The Sord M5 is one of those, an elegant Japanese system running on a Z80 with 16Kb of RAM, colour graphics and sound plus a cartridge slot. The M5 sold well in Japan, and saw some popularity in the UK (as the CGL M5) and Czechoslovakia. Locally-produced derivatives of the M5 also sold well in South Korea. Although it showed promise, by the time it hit the shops the market was becoming crowded and it didn’t last long. Working M5s in good condition can sell for £500 or more, and cartridges are worth around £50 to £100 or so.

2010s Bloomberg Terminal, Jupiter Ace, Sord M5

Not all computing innovations are welcome. The world’s first computer virus – Elk Cloner – was also invented in 1982 by Rick Skrenta. This boot sector virus infected Apple II floppy disks, although it usually did no real harm.

One other technology product to come to market in 1982 was the CD player. The world’s first model was the Sony CDP-101 launched in Japan in October. In the rest of the world, the Philips CD100 was the first available model. Sales were slow at first due to the cost, but by the late 1990s and early part of the 2000s the CD player became the most popular medium for music.

Elk Cloner, Sony CDP-101

A decade later, 1992 was a pretty good year for technology too. This was the year that Windows 3.1 launched, a significant upgrade to the first usable version of Windows – Windows 3.0 launched in 1990 – version 3.1 added more polish and stability. For many people, Windows 3.1 was their very first experience of Microsoft Windows.

Perhaps not many Windows machines of that era are memorable, but the IBM ThinkPad launched in 1992 had a reputation for good design, robustness and reliability. A strong seller for IBM, especially to corporate customers, the ThinkPad line was eventually acquired by Lenovo in 2005 and is still made today.

An ideal peripheral to complement your Windows-based laptop might be the HP LaserJet 4. An exceptionally reliable laser printer, it was also more compact than previous models, easier to maintain, faster and gave better quality printouts. The LaserJet 4 was capable of producing over a million pages during its individual lifetime, and although parts did wear out they could be easily replaced. It was easy to connect to a LAN via an optional network card, or you could use a parallel cable. Although seemingly obsolete today, aftermarket spares kits are still available indicating that there are still LaserJet 4 series printers still in use.

Windows 3.1 box, IBM ThinkPad, HP LaserJet 4

Not every computer of the time was a Windows or Intel-based computer. The Atari Falcon030 was the final evolution of the once-popular Atari ST line. Based on a Motorola 68030 CPU with a Motorola 56001 DSP supporting sound and graphics, the Falcon030 made a good games machine, was excellent for music and MIDI interfacing and came with a wide variety of expansion options. However, Atari was struggling and the Falcon030 was dropped just a year later. Around the same time Atari was working on the Falcon040, a 68040 power version. The Falcon is another collectable system, with prices for a good example being well in excess of £1000.

DEC was also coming up with innovative products in 1992. The DEC Alpha 21064 CPU was a powerful RISC processor designed for workstations and more powerful systems. Capable of much faster performance than Intel’s rival CPUs, the Alpha architecture saw some success in the 1990s but it faded away after DEC was bought out, first by Compaq and then by HP.

Atari Falcon030, DEC Alpha 21064

Another decade later to 2002, and mobile phones were becoming popular, and some of these were beginning to blur the line between a phone and a computer with the introduction of smartphones. The Sony Ericsson P800 was a Symbian-based device with a stylus-driven touchscreen and a camera, which is effectively one of the ancestors of modern smartphones today. Due to the high price and complexity, it didn’t sell in huge numbers but it did appeal to those who could see the advantage of having a computer in your pocket.

If you wanted something simpler and more robust, you could try the rubbery Nokia 5100. A weird-looking thing by modern standards, the 5100 comes from a golden age of phone design where every new model had its own distinctive looks. The 5100's key selling point was its robustness, although most Nokia phones of that era seemed pretty indestructible. 

Technology was coming to other more mundane devices as well. The Roomba is an autonomous robot vacuum cleaner, first introduced in 2002. Capable of cleaning a floor by itself and then returning to its dock to recharge, the Roomba is more of a pet than a domestic appliance – sometimes needing rescuing when it has gotten itself stuck on something. Twenty years of development have made Roombas even smarter.

Sony Ericsson P800, Nokia 5100, 2002-era Roomba

Finally… well, a different sort of invention altogether. 120 years ago in 1902, the Teddy Bear was invented. Named after President Theodore Roosevelt, the teddy became the most popular type of soft toy of all time. Go and cuddle one right now.

1903 Teddy Bear

Image credits:
DUKW: 270865 via Flickr - CC BY-ND 2.0
VW Phaeton: Greg Gjerdingen via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 2.0
KITT Replica: Interceptor73 via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 2.0
Namco Pole Position: Steve McFarland via Flickr - CC BY-NC 2.0
ColecoVision: Georges Seguinia via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0
Magnavox Odyssey: Jesmar via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0
Ferranti Argus 700: Rain Rabbit via Flickr - CC BY-NC 2.0
Hedy Lamarr: MGM via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
Gatling Gun: Max Smith via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
DEC Rainbow 100: David Alcubierre via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0
DEC Professional running as VAX Console: Michael L. Umbricht via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
Prototype Lilith: Tomislav Medak via Flickr - CC BY 2.0
Cray XMP: Rama via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 2.0 FR
2010s Bloomberg Terminal: E.W. Scripps School of Journalism - CC BY-NC 2.0
Jupiter Ace: Soupmeister via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0
Sord M5: Staffan Vilcans via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0
Elk Cloner: Richard Skrenta via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
Sony CDP-101: Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
Microsoft Windows 3.1: Darklanlan via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
IBM ThinkPad: Jarek Piórkowski via Flickr - CC BY-NC 2.0
HP LaserJet 4: DuffDudeX1 via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
Atari Falcon030: Wolfgang Stief via Flickr – CC0
DEC Alpha 21064: Dirk Oppelt via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0
Sony Ericsson P800: Sony Ericsson Press Release
Nokia 5100: Nokia Press Release
Roomba: Larry D Moore via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 4.0
1903 Teddy Bear: Tim Evanson via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0

Chocolate, Cheese, Ice-Cream and Fizzy Drink. Oh my.

This year sees the anniversary of several well-known food brands, and a few lesser-known ones. It turns out that some have been around for longer than you might imagine… others, not so much.

Philadelphia Cream Cheese started off life in 1872 in where else, but… errr… New York State. As sometimes happens, Philadelphia was an accident. In an attempt to make a crumbly French-style cheese known as Neufchâtel, too much cream was added which had the happy effect of making it easy to spread. Cream Cheese was born, and the Philadelphia brand became a success that is still widely enjoyed around the world today – although it has had many different owners during that time, today it is owned by Kraft.

Philadelphia Cream Cheese

A rather more polarising thing to spread on bread is Marmite. Introduced in 1902, this intensely savoury spread is made from yeast extract. More than something to put on your toast (or in a stew or casserole), Marmite also gives rise to a saying in British English that something is a “bit Marmite”, which means that people will either love it or hate it. The distinctive Marmite jars are shipped worldwide, and today the brand is owned by Unilever.

Marmite and toast

Yeast extract is a key ingredient in Twiglets, another British snack, introduced in 1932. Starting off life as a way to use up leftover dough, these unusual twig-shaped snacks are very savoury and are traditionally eaten at Christmas. Again, the brand has had a few owners and it is today a product of Jacobs, part of United Biscuits.

Two bags of Twiglets

The Mars Bar was invented in the same year – 1932 – by the British arm of Mars Incorporated. A worldwide success – with slightly different ingredients according to market – the British Mars Bar contains nougat and caramel coated in milk chocolate. The flavour of the bar is quite distinctive and has found its way into many authorised spin-off products. Somewhat less authorised in the artery-clogging deep-fried Mars Bar found in Scotland.

Partially-eaten Mars Bar

1932 was a good year for snacks. The Terry’s Chocolate Orange is another British product with strong sales around Christmas. Shaped like an orange, it consists of 20 segments of chocolate infused with orange oil, giving it a distinctive texture and taste. In order to separate the segments it needs to be hit on a hard surface first, giving way to the long-running advertising slogan “tap it and unwrap it”.  Traditionally made from milk chocolate, other varieties are available plus a chocolate bar. The Terry’s company has had several different owners over the years, including Kraft, but is now owned by Carambar and made in France.

Terry's Chocolate Orange

Skip forward thirty years to 1962 and another iconic chocolate product was created by British firm Rowntree. After Eight mints are very thin chocolate mints, containing a fondant filling and traditionally served in a small box with each chocolate in an individual sleeve. Unlike many chocolate products marketed at young people, After Eights were marketed to adults as an upmarket product that could be eaten after dinner with coffee. Today the product is owned by Nestlé and made in Germany.

Box of After Eight mints

Switching back to cheese from chocolate and moving away from big corporations, we come to Stinking Bishop. This aromatic (some might say “smelly”) soft cheese was originally developed in 1972 by Charles Martell. Produced from the milk of rare Old Gloucester cows, the distinctive smell comes from the cheese being washed with a locally-produced perry (pear wine) made with the Stinking Bishop pear. The “stinking” part of the name came from the nickname of the ill-tempered farmer who grew them. The cheese itself would have remained obscure, but it ends up as a key plot device in the 2005 movie Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. As a product it remains stubbornly unavailable in supermarkets, but can be found at cheese specialists, delicatessens and some high-end retailers.

Stinking Bishop cheese

One thing that goes nicely with a nice piece of cheese is some nice bread. One of the best-known types of bread worldwide is ciabatta. You might think that this is a traditional Italian product, but in fact it was only developed in 1982. This white bread is notable for its inclusion of olive oil, giving it a unique texture and taste. The bread was developed in response to the success of the French baguette which was taking over the Italian market, and became a worldwide success in its own right… one that you wouldn’t think was just 40 years old.

Slices of ciabatta

Something that sounds Italian but isn’t, Viennetta is a brand of ice-cream also introduced in 1982. Consisting of layers of rippled ice-cream with very thin layers of chocolate in between, the Viennetta is a high-distinctive looking product. Despite the name, Viennetta was developed in the UK by Walls and the brand is now owned by Unilever.

A very small Viennetta

Another brand that isn’t as old as you might think is Diet Coke, introduced in 1982 and the perfect thing to wash down some high-calorie ice-cream. Although the Coca-Cola Company had made a sugar-free cola since 1963 under the “Tab” brand, they wanted to keep the “Coke” name associated with their flagship product only. However, the success of rival Diet Pepsi led to a change of plans and Diet Coke was born. Diet Coke has a slightly different taste from normal Coca-Cola,  and in 2005 the company also introduced Coca-Cola Zero which has a taste closer to the original. Diet Coke (and similar products) are widely available, and are one of the few drinks you can reliably find if you want to avoid sugar.

Quite a lot of Diet Coke

Of course, other types of food are also available and you might want to balance out all the fat and processed ingredients with something healthy like a salad (invented some time in antiquity) and maybe a nice glass of water…

Image credits:
Philadelphia: POSt18 via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
Marmite: Rhino Neal via Flickr – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Twiglets: Adam Kuban via Flickr - CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Mars Bar: Asim18 via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
Terry’s Chocolate Orange: Brett Jordan via Flickr - CC BY 2.0
After Eight Mints: Like_the_Grand_Canyon via Flickr - CC BY-NC 2.0
Stinking Bishop: Stephen Boisvert via Flickr - CC BY 2.0
Ciabatta: tuhfe via Flickr - CC BY 2.0
Vienneta: cyclonebill via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0
Diet Coke: Niall Kennedy via Flickr - CC BY-NC 2.0