Welcome to the
Michael Aldrich Archive
Michael Aldrich was a pioneer of online shopping in the 1980s before the internet was born.
He worked in the Information Technology industry for 38 years from 1962 to 2000 when computers moved from the size of small houses to the size of a thumbnail, from batch monoprogramming using punched card files to real-time interactive world- wide networks with gigabyte disk storage in the laptop and from doing not a great deal to being ubiquitous.
The Michael Aldrich Archive is a unique record of this period, consisting mainly of original material from Michael Aldrich’s personal papers, materials from the company he founded and his own later narrative.
Michael Aldrich, Kenneth McKendry, 2018, Oil on board. From the Aldrich Collection
In December 2007, I was asked out of the blue ”Grandpa, did you invent internet shopping?” I thought about the question and replied, “No, but a very long time ago I was involved in something called ‘teleshopping’.
Michael Aldrich
The Archive Content
Pioneers of Online Shopping
The invention and early application of online shopping, contemporary e-commerce and e-business in 1979.
Innovative Information Systems
A broad mix of innovative IT projects from the 1980s.
Teleputers and Cable Systems
The 1980 invention of the Teleputer, a fusion of PC, TV and Telecom, and the 1981 plan to change UK law to permit the use of interactive broadband cable networks.
Data Capture
An examination of data capture, part of the old world of data processing in the era before the PC.
Human Factors
Management issues as related to an IT business at the end of the 20th century