It's rare for us to spend an hour-long staff meeting in nonstop laughter. But that's pretty much what happened when our colleagues in the US gathered to go through old print issues of Computerworld as part of the 40th anniversary celebration. The idea of hauling those issues out of storage was to look at important stories and people through the years. But it was impossible to get over the ads!

You could purchase this 80MB disk system for less than $12k, if you ordered more than 40 units. And even better, 300MB for under $20k! (that's over Rs 9 lakh). Not very irresistible today, but apparently a bargain back when this was published.

Date Published: May 16, 1977.

That's the question posed in this Honeywell ad, which explains: "Simply put, it means high-speed information transportation. One of the most advanced methods is terminals talking to one another". Who knew?

Date Published: November 16, 1981.

These modems are 'all performers,' as this ad not-so-subtly boasts. Right from 1,200 bit/sec to all the way up to 4,800 bit/sec. This is one ad not to be missed. Click the link below to view it in its full sized glory.

Date Published: November 17, 1971.

Not only would you get all the features of a high-priced word processing system, but "with WordStar, you have a true screen image of what your printout will look like before you print it! You'll erase, insert, delete and move entire blocks of copy."

Date Published: January 26, 1981.

"You say you don't know your process from your loop? Or your CASE from your GOTO? No doubt, you're suffering from COBOLitis," says this ad from the folks at Yourdon Press.

Date Published: November 13, 1978.

"Everyone needs to use the computer? With The Personal Mainframe, up to 512 users can work interactively at their own terminals," says an ad for this system that touts computing availability beyond the glass-enclosed data center."

Date Published: November 9, 1981.

Well before the era of handhelds or even laptops came "briefcase portability." This system features interactive CRT terminal, control unit, keyboard, acoustic coupler and 5-in. video monitor.

Date Published: May 17, 1976.

In this ad, readers are told that a "little ball turns an ordinary Selectric typewriter into the only bilingual input device in the world. We are not sure the current generation of students would even recognize the Selectric type ball in the picture.

Date Published: May 17, 1972.

"MultiSpeed is multi-talented. It's small. Light [11.2 lb. (over 5 kg)]. And gives you the option of running at a clock speed of either 9.54 or 4.77 MHz," boasts this ad from NEC showing what a laptop of its day was like.

Date Published: April 6, 1987.

Remember Elvira, Mistress of the Dark? "The scariest thing about CASE is the several hundred pounds of books that land on your desk and for which you've paid fifteen gazillion dollars, when you buy off on a CASE development methodology," she writes.

Date Published: November 11, 1991.