Today we celebrate some of the products that the 80s had to offer, some are odd and some are amazing. See how we all made it through the roaring 80s.
One of the greatest things to come out of the 1980s was Lazer Tag, it turned any gathering into a battle. This was the 80s equivalent of an FPS, pretty low tech but the graphics were pretty amazing.
Before DVDs and Blu-Ray disks we had VCRs. They read a magnetic tape that contained a movie, it was glorious. You may not have been able to go chapter by chapter of your movie, but you did have some serious tracking issues that would make your movie unwatchable. Through all of the pros and cons DVD was a much better medium.
This instrument helped define a generation, it made the 80s music even more awesome. It’s presence has created some great music, both in the 80s and now. We’re discovering a way to use the oft forgotten instrument in modern music, it’s our generation’s harpsichord.
Before cell phones that can play Netflix and Hulu we had the Sony Watchman. This made the 80s feel like the future, you could walk around and watch television. In a world where the internet didn’t really exist, this was unimaginable. It was a fantastic sight to see something that could harness tech of tv and put it in your hands. So many minds were blown.
Before there was the iPhone there was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. This was the ultimate status symbol, you were immediately above the dirty masses if you were seen with one of these. If you were Zack Morris or Patrick Bateman this was a must-have accessory.
If you were a kid in the 80s the Mr. Frosty Slush Master was the savior of your summer afternoon. You could get your very own slushie without having to go anywhere – you could make these in your home. This “toy” must have used some pretty serious technology to amaze a generation of people.
In the 80s you didn’t know when you would have to add or subtract, so Casio gave us the Casio C-80. This calculator watch would let you do math on the go, you didn’t need to carry around that clunky calculator everywhere you went. This piece of cutting-edge technology put the power of math into the hands of the proletariat.
For many their first computer was the Commodore 64. This machine would hook up to your television and soon have you playing some pretty rudimentary games that were amazing. We didn’t need flashy graphics, we needed something. This was that something, “It’s Better Than Nothing” could have been it’s tagline and it would have worked beautifully.
