Yes, I know it’s probably just a reference to checking stock prices (a bull market), but I choose to interpret the cow as a reference to the promised “adventure games” or perhaps even “fantastic space games.”

If you can read the text, you’ll also note that “videotex service” CompuServe offered a multichannel CB simulator.

(thanks to Mark Sample for this find)

published August 14, 2011

Comments

  1. Elijah Meeks

    Looks authentic, based on the print advertisements for games with similar graphics and gameplay from that period. Though, whoever drew that cow and that JohnCarter-LukeSkywalker-BuckRogers Captain Ersatz loved muscles so much I’m surprised the camera isn’t bulging.

  2. Mark Sample

    Wow, it never even occurred to me that the bull probably refers to the stock market. I was thinking maybe it was a reference to some game about a half-minotaur/half-ghostly-white-mist beast. Seriously.

    I also love the “multi-channel CB emulator.” Is this what chat rooms were originally called? If so, breaker-breaker, this Rubber Ducky wants to sign up!

    By the way – this ad came from December 1984 issue of RUN magazine. Like many other computer magazines of the era, it’s a goldmine of perceptions and aspirations about early home computing.