'80 Mbytes of storage for under $12k!' and other ad favorites through the years

Computerworld - It's rare for us to spend an hour-long staff meeting in nonstop laughter.

But that's pretty much what happened when we gathered to go through old print issues of Computerworld as part of our 40th anniversary celebration.

The original idea of hauling those Computerworld issues out of storage was to look at important stories and people throughout the years. But we couldn't get over the ads!

"80 Mbytes of storage for less than $12,000!" boasts one. In another, a woman in hot pants touts a modem that's, yes, "maybe even sexy." There's even a campy B movie celebrity hawking development software.

It was too much fun not to share. So after one of the best meetings ever, we bring you 10 of our favorite, most entertaining IT ads from four decades of Computerworld. If you'd like, you can try to guess what year the ad ran before clicking the image to find out. Click through, and you'll also find out the top Computerworld stories from the issue, as well as a larger version of the image.

Such a deal

You can purchase this 80MB disk system for less than $12k -- and even better, 300MB for under $20k!

Not very irresistible today, but apparently a bargain back when this was published. So good, in fact, that prices were valid only for resellers buying at least 40 systems.

Have an idea when this might have been published? We'll offer this headline hint from the front page of the same issue: "Mainframes Not Always a Must, Citibank Officer Advises Users."

Click to see a larger version of the ad, what year it ran and more top news from that issue.

What the heck is electronic mail?

That's the question posed in this Honeywell ad, which explains: "Simply put, it means high-speed information transportation.