Gateway Essential PC (commercial 1999)

In 1999, Gateway 2000 had dropped the 2000 from their name and was making a little more noise than usual because now their cheap PCs were below $999, including a monitor and everything!

The sub-$1000 PC was new to the market and bizarrely, some doubted there was a market for it. Well, there sure was and not long after there was no market for the over-$1000 PC.

The ad reminds you that other cheap ($999) PCs don't include monitors and don't come with all the "helpful" free software pre-installed to clog up your hard drive and slow your machine down. It also tells us you'll get free internet (*for a year, $3.95 for rural access that's a heck of a twist for a company that uses cows as their logo, also don't go over 150 hours in a month or you'll pay surcharges). This internet was of course dial-up, which wasn't considered bad at the the time, but the other limitations were probably a bit annoying.

The mini-tower shown seems to come with a pair of stereo speakers and a 13" CRT monitor, plus of course a keyboard and mouse.

The ad ends by telling you it comes with an Intel Celeron processor and with the Intel Inside jingle. The jingle at the end was relatively new at this time, but continues to this day. Every ad with that jingle at the end is partially paid for out of Intel's ad budget.

This 30 second spot aired during a 1999 showing of Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Gateway
• Gateway 2000
• Essential PC
• 1997
• commercial
• Intel Inside
• Intel
• Celeron
• dial-up
• computing

[cguyrr]

free internet access, just $28 a month

[mikedoerrproduction]

hahaha fucking celerons are the worst processors ever

[geo58impala]

yep, that's the late 90's the best vintage computer era

[someone31988]

Wow, I remember this commercial and my family eventually buying a Gateway computer later in the year.

[PainfulOrpheus]

I miss that floating cow box screensaver!

[brandonefron2064]

Does this come with Rockett's New School?

[ssj4david]

This IS a bargain basement PC.

[Gatewayuser200]

@mikedoerrproduction the duron is still a striped down processor

[mikedoerrproduction]

@Gatewayuser200 Duron smokes Celerons right off the line

[Gatewayuser200]

@mikedoerrproduction Well, replace your cell phones processor with a modern celeron and it will fly out of your hands and hit your mum in the face (imagine you cell with a real intel processor lol) . And dont for get to add the AMD Duron to the list of shitty processors

[mikedoerrproduction]

@Gatewayuser200 i think you may be exaggerating when you say "much, much more".. come on.. its a fucking Celeryon LOL... Celerons / Semprons (AMD's shit processors) are like the horse and buggy of the processor world.

[Gatewayuser200]

@mikedoerrproduction even my "shiteron" processor has much, much more power than any cell phone.