• PC World
• »Computers

Alan Alda and the Atari 800XL (1984)

These days, technology wars are usually fought over specs and features. But in the 1980s, celebrity endorsements were the weapons of choice. As evidence, check out this quote from coverage of Atari's announcement that it had hired "MASH"'s surgical cutup: "The arrangement with Alda is expected to more than match the celebrity-spokesman impact achieved by competing computer companies."

Alda's impact was of the soft variety, though. In one television commercial, he helps a young girl use Atari's word processing software to promote feminism. In another, he's lounging in a bathrobe and slippers while extolling his new best friend, the Atari XL, to the dismay of his loyal dog.

We named the earlier Atari 800 one of the greatest PCs of all time. The 800XL was reportedly Atari's best-selling PC, but the company's computer line became a casualty of the PC price war of the mid-'80s.