Behold the peak of 1980 alpha-energy: a man who has finally found a machine he can "respect." Nothing says "I’m a serious professional" like a sweater vest the color of a bruised plum and a computer that looks like a microwave had a child with a wood-paneled station wagon.
The Compucolor II was clearly designed for the man who wants to fight Klingons in 8 glorious foreground colors while his disk drive makes sounds like a blender crushing gravel. Check out that keyboard, it’s not just a peripheral; it’s a topographical map of a Lego factory, featuring enough multicolored keys to launch a nuclear strike or, more likely, just type out a very slow grocery list in BASIC. For the low, low price of $1,595 (roughly $6,500 in today’s money), you too could own a screen with "16,484 individually-accessible plot blocks." Move over, 4K resolution; the age of the "plot block" is here, and it is beautifully, chunky-ly beige.
Sourced from the January 1980 issue of Interface Age magazine.
