Ambra Personal Computers

AMBRA Personal Computers was the trading name of Individual Computer Products International (ICPI) Limited - a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM between 1992 and 1994 in the UK and operating in the United Kingdom, Europe and Canada. The registered company number was 1197742. The registered address was The Quay, 30 Channel Way, Ocean Village, Southampton, SO14 3QG ^[1] however advertising frequently quoted IBM's head office in the UK - PO Box 41 North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU - still IBM's current premises.

The AMBRA name was later licensed in 1993 by ICPI to The AMBRA Computer Corporation in the United States^[2] - itself a subsidiary of IBM. This is noted in the small-print of US adverts such as PC World magazine between 1993 and 1994.^[3] The two organisations (Ambra Personal Computers & The Ambra Computer Corporation) operated independently of each other although clearly shared some hardware casing profiles (albeit named differently - for example in the AMBRA Hurdla in the UK and Europe shared the case of the D466DXA in the United States), and AMBRA specific software packages pre-loaded on the PCs consisting of an AMBRA branded tutorial and menu system designed to load from DOS on initial startup and was specific to the model of machine running on. They also used separately trademarked logos, Ambra Personal Computers using a colourful caricature of and athlete running over a hill.

History

The AMBRA name, and the ICPI organisation was founded effectively by Alan J Willsher in IBM UK following a discussion with Bill McCracken, an American who was the General Manager of Personal Systems in IBM Europe. McCracken was keen to start an IBM funded, low-cost value end set of machines due to the increasing number of "IBM Clones" appearing on the market during the early 1990s.

The venture kicked off in November 1991 when Willsher hand-picked a team of nine IBMers who were challenged to launch the Ambra line of PC's exactly one year later in time for Christmas 1992. Leveraging the resources and support of IBM they achieved this notably ahead of schedule with the actual launch taking place in June 1992 - nearly six months ahead of schedule. Central to this success was the engagement of Chris Harris from agency Bartle, Bogle & Heggerty - then famous for Shell and Levis Jeans adverts across the world. The branding and advertisements took an athletic theme designed to cater for the low-end business, budget and home user segments. The launching portfolio consisted of three initial Intel 80386 models - a slimline desktop, a large desktop and a notebook, named the Ambra Sprinta, Ambra Hurdla, and Ambra Treka respectively.

Other than the allocated budget, ICPI was given complete control of how the business was run without interference from IBM - a highly unusual move for such a corporate with the only requirement to be successful. McCracken had granted Willsher and team full autonomy with IBM to not be referenced in the marketing stating "They are totally independent. They will on a day to day and on a strategic basis set their goals, objectives and criteria they are running at, and run at those. They will be measured on those by the marketplace". From the outset concerns were raised both internally and from the media in that the Ambra product line would surely compete with IBM's own-branded Personal Systems brand - referred to as PS/1 and PS/2 and ValuePoint machines.

1992 Initial Launch

The month of June 1992 was official launch month for ICPI and Ambra, starting with the UK on June 4,^[4] and then immediately moving on to another eleven European countries with France being second.

Whilst launching, ICPI was already planning the launch of the 486 range - the same casing but with upgraded processors and specifications which would hit the stores by December 1992. Cosmetically these cases were identical other than the number 486 being printed in the lower left corner to differentiate it from its predecessor.

The 486 range was announced on September 14, 1992, at which point Willsher would be promoted by IBM to found their consulting arm (which still is in existence today), and was replaced by Giuseppe Giovanni, already working at ICPI and McCracken would be promoted to President of Personal Systems, IBM Europe. ^[5]

AMBRA Sprinta

The AMBRA Sprinta was the slimline desktop PC which supported 3 IDE cards off a riser on the motherboard, and 1 spare 5.25" drive bay on the front of the machine. Early machines had the front spare drive bay hard-molded requiring removal with a Stanley knife. Subsequent batches supported a more traditional removable plate.

There was a 386 version (1992) and a 486 version (1993) with the latter having the numbers "486" imprinted on the front panel.

The first run of Sprinta machines (as was the case with the big brother Hurdla machines also) feature an strange four plate monitor mounting bay affixed to the top of the case. Little was it known that this held two purposes - a special molded plastic cross was supplied to fit neatly into the molding to secure an AMBRA monitor placed on top to affix it dead-center to the casing preventing it from moving. More subtly however, the molding itself formed the trademark logo of ICPI - the parent company of AMBRA which was a 2x2 set of boxes (one box for each letter of "ICPI").

The second run of machines (486's) in this casing, lost the monitor molding, presumably a cost-cutting measure before the introduction of the Mark II Sprinta in 1993, the AMBRA Sprinta II.

AMBRA Treka

The AMBRA Treka was the notebook model. According to the packaged technical reference guide, there were four variations of the Treka which had subtly different configurations and capabilities.

• AMBRA Treka
• AMBRA Treka Plus
• AMBRA Treka Max
• AMBRA Treka Elite

The processors consisted of Intel 80386SL running at either 20Mhz or 25Mhz depending on which model was purchased. In all cases there was the possibility of upgrading to a 80387 math co-processor through an expansion port on the base of the unit behind a square cover. This would enable floating-point calculations and would improve performance in some scenarios.

The motherboard had 2MB on-board memory, but offered 3 expansion SIMM sockets behind a cover below the LCD screen in line with the hinges. A data or fax model could be inserted in the side of machine. Modems could run at 300/1200/2400bit/s auto sync, or fax modems at 2400bit/s.

The display was an LCD screen with CCFT backlighting capable of running a resolution of 640x480, but was black and white, not colour. The video controller, a GD610/620c did enable an external VGA monitor to be connected through the rear VGA port which would allow colour externally.

A pair of Ni-Cad batteries were supplied with about 3 hours of usage time each, along with an AMBRA AC mains adapter.

The hard disk was a Conner 40Mb or 80Mb internal 2.5" connected to the motherboard through an IDE cable.

There was an inbuilt 3.5" 1.44Mb capable floppy disk drive.

The rear of machine had VGA, external floppy, serial RS-232, Centronics parallel port and a bespoke charging port.

The side had a PS/2 mouse or keyboard port.

An AMBRA mouse and branded mousepad was provided with the machine.

Optional accessories on-top of those expansion options described included a leather carry case, and a separate charging cradle to charge one battery whilst the other was in-use.

1993 Refreshed Product Line

Between 1993 and 1994 an updated product line would replace that of 1992. The Ambra Sprinta was replaced with the Ambra Sprinta II - an even more slimline version. The Ambra Hurdla was replaced with the Ambra Hurdla MT (with MT standing for Mini Tower) aimed at the business market requiring more power and expansion potential, and the Ambra MK3 notebook - and extremely rare 486 model which was more akin to the American offerings than those of the UK and Europe.

Ambra Sprinta II

The AMBRA Sprinta II was again a slimline PC like its predecessor, but was even smaller offering space-saving well maintaining a similar level of expansion opportunity through 3 ISA connections off a vertically mounted riser card attached to the motherboard.

Ambra Hurdla MT

The Hurdla, already a far chunkier profile than the Sprinta was released in the second generation as a mini-tower (hence the model name MT) offering far greater expandability for the business or multimedia user.

Ambra Notebook v2

Succeeding the AMBRA Treka (which was a 386SL), the second generation was a dark grey cased notebook, and whilst it still sported the UK AMBRA athlete logo, was far more akin to those laptops released in the United States by the AMBRA Computer Corporation. It was probably built by Chicony on behalf of AMBRA referenced as AMBRA NT425SL (mono) or AMBRA NC425SL (colour) as the notebook 486 range. It is likely the lifespan of this notebook was very short before Ambra closed doors for good.

The only surviving online reference appears to be to a UK based EBay listing for such a machine.^[6]

Software Pre-Load

All AMBRA machines were designed to be ready-to-go out of the box. Machines were pre-loaded with DOS, Windows 3.1 and depending on configuration, business software - which was typically Microsoft Works, Lotus Smartsuite or GeoWorks. There was also a games pack which included 1990's favourite, Lemmings.

Due to IBM ownership, the AMBRA PC was initially shipped with IBM DOS version 5.0 rather than Microsoft DOS version 5.0. DOS version 5 actually had a shared code-base between the organisations, which changed from MS-DOS version 6 onwards. This resulted in the Windows icon for MS-DOS 5.0 being replaced with IBM's own DOS icon and simply said "DOS Prompt" rather than "MS-DOS Prompt".

AMBRA machines had a one-of introduction, menu system and tutorial pre-loaded. After first-use this could be run from the Windows 3.1 "AMBRA" group within Program Manager or from the DOS prompt. Several batch files were include to also reset the configuration to factory-setting boot-up sequence.^[7]

The software was provided by ICPI under a license non-disclosure agreement, which meant users received no installation disks should the machine need rebuilding. A provided "Read Me NOW!!!" Microsoft Write file (Write was the bundled predecessor software to Microsoft Word) informed users that approximately 17 1.44Mb floppy disks were required to backup the initial disk using DOS's "backup" command. Customers could call the AMBRA helpline to get floppy disks mailed out to them temporarily - requiring returning or incurring a £20 charge.

A selection of nine AMBRA branded wallpapers were included within the C:\WINDOWS folder as bitmap images.

To compliment the machines, ICPI shipped extremely comprehensive manuals, including technical guides, DOS guides, Microsoft Windows Guides, and Microsoft Works Guides. These guides were all branded in the signature Ambra font with the Ambra logo on the front and back.

The Ambra Disk Builder Utility

The second generation of models - Ambra Sprinta II and Ambra Hurdla MT - included a utility called The Ambra Disk Builder which was written by Paul Myers for ICPI enabling installation disks for the licensed software to be generated by the user themselves making use of hidden folders on the hard disk containing the software images.

The disk builder relied on customers purchasing their own blank 1.44Mb floppy disks which could be subsequently written to by the Disk Builder utility to re-create original install disks. This was an improvement on the 1992 production where the customer was expected to make backups themselves using DOS's inbuilt tools, which whilst effective, was more complex and was command-line driven. The disk builder (ADBUILD.EXE), included in the AMBRA group within Windows Program Manager, had a supporting .INF file which contained the country-specific information used within the application's text screens through a series of variables set up in standard Windows .INF file sections.

The AMBRA Sprinta II and AMBRA Hurdla MT were the first machines in the range to have the disk builder pre-loaded. Alternatively, customers could ring the AMBRA support line and request floppy disks to be posted to them. These had to be returned otherwise a £20 fee was incurred.

The Ambra Mouse

The first generation AMBRA mouse, was a bespoke PS/2 off-white/battleship grey model which had the unusual form of the mouse buttons (representing the eyes of a real mouse) pulling in to click, rather than the traditional method of pushing down to engage.

This was met with mixed reception from public and press alike.^[8] It was certainly an eye-catcher in shop displays and undoubtedly appealed to the younger generation. The build quality was very good, but criticism led to a more traditional design being shipped with the 1993/Mk II product lines.

The AMBRA Keyboard

Whilst full control was given to ICPI for sourcing components and materials, there was a notable exception - the keyboard. Due to a corporate-level exclusivity agreement which existed between IBM and Lexmark, and applicable to all subsidiaries and IBM-owned companies, there was a legal obligation for Lexmark to supply the keyboards.

This increased the per unit cost from what could have been negligible to around $30 per unit.

As a result both the first generation keyboard was a rebranded IBM M2, and the second generation a rebranded IBM type M - both sourced from Lexmark.

Both variants had the AMBRA logo as opposed to the IBM logo.

The Maverick PC

In early 1994, ICPI developed a sub-brand to AMBRA called Maverick. The Maverick was a desktop PC in a black casing - an unusual choice for the early nineties with only a few mainstream clones such as Viglen and VTech selling a non-beige/white cased PCs. It had a characteristically different mouse drawing comparisons to the first generation of Ambra PCs.

Fate & legacy

On February 16, 1994, it was announced that Ambra Personal Computers, and ICPI would cease to exist from March 31, 1994. At this point the Ambra Computer Corporation in the US would continue, but the UK and Europe under ICPI would be wound up. European operations were by this time small with just sixty-four people, and only four being full-time employees of IBM. Whilst no official reason was given, IBM said that they would be price cutting their ValuePoint, PS/1 and ThinkPad machine which would render Ambra uncompetitive.^[9]

Following the demise of the AMBRA brand, IBM continued to manufacture their own PCs until 2005 when it sold its personal computer business to Chinese firm Lenovo.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ https://companycheck.co.uk/company/01197742/INDIVIDUAL-COMPUTER-PRODUCTS-INTERNATIONAL-LIMITED/companies-house-data
2. ^ Staff, Strategy. "New Ambra corp. launched in U.S.". Retrieved 2026-02-20.
3. ^ pc_world-1994_08
4. ^ CBR Staff Writer (1992-05-25). "ICPI TO INTRODUCE THREE SYSTEMS". Tech Monitor. Retrieved 2026-02-15.
5. ^ CBR Staff Writer (September 15, 1992). "…AND ICPI HAS 80486-BASED MODELS IN AMBRA LINE". Tech Monitor.
6. ^ https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234010311399
7. ^ "Ambra Sprinta Plus (Mk 1 / 386) – N-GIN-'ERE". 2026-01-18. Retrieved 2026-02-16.
8. ^ Winstanley, Alan (December 5, 2014). "Celebrating the Ambra PC – the computer that so nearly broke the mould". www.alanwinstanley.com. Retrieved 2026-02-15. I updated this in April, 2026.
9. ^ Writer, CBR Staff (1994-02-17). "IBM BUMPS AMBRA ON THE HEAD IN EUROPE; US, CANADA TO CONTINUE". Tech Monitor. Retrieved 2026-02-14.