1980: The Sony Walkman Arrives In The UK As The Sony Stowaway: Wired For Sound...

Magazine advertisement for the Sony Stowaway personal stereo, launched in the UK in 1980. In 1981, it would be patented as the Sony Walkman. 

To say their new Stowaway gives you totally incredible sound for such an an amazingly small stereo is not Sony's style.

They say they are quite pleased with it.

This is Sony's new Stowaway, a stereo cassette player about the size of your hand.

You can be forgiven for wondering how pure stereo sound can emerge from a system so small. Sony says it's quite easy; but then they would. Apparently they took the circuitry, transistors, diodes and what-have-you from a larger cassette deck, and squeezed it into a few silicon chips.

Technically, it's rather impressive. Your Sony dealer or the chaps at Sony's Regent Street show-rooms in London, can blind you with Stowaway's sience if you're interested.

But the sound! Now there's something you can understand as soon as you slip on the hi-fi headphones (inevitably they are the smallest and lightest in the world.) Clip in a standard music cassette and you'll hear all the treble and bass your ears could desire. Should you want to share the magic with a friend you can always plug in a second set of 'phones.

The little masterpiece runs off batteries, so you can tuck it in your pocket and relax to the music of your choice when you're on a train, a plane, or the next time you're in a hotel room with a radio fixed to Voice of America. Or you can buy an adaptor to run it off the mains.

Listen to Stowaway for yourself, and you'll understand why Sony are so excited.

Sony Sowaway. 

The world's smallest stereo cassette player.

  

Note that the device has two earphone plug-in points. This fact was put to use by EastEnders story-liners in 1985, when Sharon Watts, in competition with her "friend" Michelle Fowler for the attentions of Kelvin Carpenter, shared her Walkman "magic" with him - and infuriated Michelle.

Invented by Sony in 1979 and first marketed in Japan in July 1979, the personal stereo was launched in the UK in 1980 - and was marketed as the Sony Stowaway. 1980 was also the American release year and I believe it had a different name there, too - The Soundabout!

A very early mention of the newly released Sony Stowaway (Walkman) in the UK Press - a competition in the Sunday People in July 1980.

In 1981, the personal stereo was patented here under Sony's original name - the Walkman, and we saw Cliff Richard making full use of one down at the roller disco in his video (or should that be "promo" in 1981 terminology?) for Wired For Sound.

The Ingersoll Soundaround pocket hi-fi also made a brief impact on the UK in 1981, and other copy-cat personal stereos were also arriving on the market.
Soon, the personal stereo would be everywhere....

From the Daily Mirror, 30/7/1981:

The Walkmen never walk alone... or skate alone... or even cycle alone...

They are the people who have hopped on an international craze and now roam the streets wired up to the earphones of Walkman stereo sets.

The Walkman - and its many similar, often cheaper copies - has become the skateboard of electronics. A craze that has astounded the experts - and made them rich.

But, unlike the skateboard, this one should run and run...

The demand shows no sign of slowing. Lasky's, one of Britain's biggest hi-fi dealers, say: "The demand is fantastic. Our shops just can't get enough."

To Akio Morita, Sony's co-founder and chairman, it was a machine to get the world dancing. He said: "My dream is to have Walkman parties in the jungles."

Could people there afford them? I couldn't, for some time.

Back to the article...

In Britain trade sources estimate that 100,000 personal hi-fi's were sold last year and that another 250,000 will sell this year at prices of around £50 to £125.

Most sets are fairly simple in today's technological terms - but already Japanese engineers are working on more sophisticated models.

Sony are already selling a tiny version in Japan and America which includes stereo FM radio - though there are no plans to market it here.

And as the boom gathers momentum even the sophisticated models will fall in price. Marketing experts are predicting Korean and Taiwanese versions at £15, while the uses of the Walkman continue to become even more wide-spread.

They've been seen being worn by bicycling barristers and by art gallery and museum browsers. Some teenagers even take them to discos - preferring their own music to that of the DJ.

And in America, Linda Moriarty of Illinois, regularly plays classical music, via her headphones, to her unborn child.

 "The baby definitely responds," she says.

A 1983 Tandy newspaper advertisement for personal stereos. If that's what they do to you, I'll give them a miss!
 
A magazine advertisement from November 1984 - the Walkman is now on sale at £29.95.

Post updated  05/06/23

Cellular Car Phones Arrive...

"Philips - simply years ahead"!

For several decades before the 1980s, a radio system of car phones existed that were wildly expensive. Eye-wateringly expensive. With the advent of the first cellular car phones in the early 1980s, car phones were still expensive. But the cellular system was infinitely cheaper than the radio version, and you could call directly, not through an operator as had been the case before. And electronic data transmissions were also possible! In the mid-1980s, the call was going up from dealers in this exciting new technology that car phones were not just for jet setters... 

From the Daily Mail, 13/8/1985:

THE CELLULAR CAR 'PHONE. AVOID THE CONS. READ THE PROSE.

Car 'phones. They're no longer the privilege of the chosen few.

The ranks of present users - politicians, play-boys, the Adnan Khashoggis of this world, are being swollen by those of us with more modest callings.

Plumbers, small company directors, travelling sales persons, farmers, builders, photographers, vets, drain cleaning operatives, Mr. Family Man and his wife. In fact, anyone who finds a stationary phone useful, finds a mobile one invaluable.

Why do I need one?

The personal benefits must be obvious, but what about business?

Well, that's where the mobile 'phone really starts to work for you.

It totally frees your telephone life. You can start the day's calls (and receive them) the moment you get into the car.

Sure, you may still get stuck in a jam but at least you won't be worrying about the people you should be speaking to.

You'll be in touch.

Which, with the Phillips M7000 series, is somehing of an understatement.

It operates on the Vodafone system, feeding directly into the public telephone network, so you're in touch with the whole country.

Or any other for that matter.

What price communication?

Although our competition often avoids the issue, we're very much in favour of spelling out the cost.

Because with the Phillips M7000, what you get for your £1,499* (you can lease it if you prefer) is quite remarkable.

Simply, you get a 'phone that's designed for the British network, with more features than any other similarly priced 'phone on the market.

Including a helpful 'one bill' payment system.

This ensures every single bill, from your subscription to your shortest call, comes from the same source.

But what of the features?

To start, it has one of the highest number storage facilities. Without lifting the 'phone, you can dial up to 40 previously programmed numbers. Unauthorised use is prevented by a clever locking mode.

There's a 'scratch pad' allowing you to store a number during your conversation, which is then available for dialling when you hang up.

How did we manage before?

(You're talking to John who asks you to call the Edinburgh office. You don't know the number of the Edinburgh office. He tells you. You tap it in as you're chatting. When you hang up, you can automatically dial it.)

And that number is visible on a 16 digit display.

Forgotten the Company Secretary's home number? Press the 'scroll facility', it will remind you.

Forgotten to turn the machine off? After six hours it will do that too. So no flat batteries.

Forgotten the name of the car 'phone that provides more features, has a better service back-up, a 'one bill' payment system and isn't afraid to print the prose and the price?

It's Philips.

*Recommended Selling Price. Price correct at time of going to press.

END OF BLURB!

Clever advertising! After Michael Harrison/Ernie Wise made those historic first phone calls on 1 January 1985 (details here), cellular phones were definitely on the way in.

But, for the vast majority of us poor peasants, the good old pay phone remained the only way to make telephonic contact on the hoof for some years to come. 

The wonders of modern technology - a 1980s Motorola car phone.

A newspaper advertisement from March 1986.

Ford car phones - August 1986...

From the beginning of September, all Ford dealers in Britain will be able to supply and install the new Ford Telecommunications cellular in-car telephone in any of the company's new cars or commercial vehicles.

The system is operated in conjunction with Carphone Group. Users of Ford Telecommunications equipment will be linked to either of the two major cellular networks in Britain.

The Ford Telecommunications system, which is manufactured by NovAtel in the United States, is specially adapted for operation in Britain. It permits direct dial calls to or from any telephone subscriber anywhere in the world.

Additional features include a "hands free" call facility, with a microphone located close to the sun visor and a speaker located in the front compartment of the vehicle for safer and more convenient use by drivers.

Further built-in features include last number redial, a memory bank with a capacity for 50 frequently used numbers, an Alpha facility for permitting other subscribers to be identified by name, a volume control, an electronic lock to prevent misuse of the apparatus, a 3-way conference link and a mute device for enabling private conversations to be held in the car while a call is in progress.

Electronic data transmissions are also possible employing telex, facsimile, videotex or computer formats.

"This is a totally new venture for Ford in Britain," said Mr Derek Dawes, Ford Director responsible for Parts Sales.

He added: "In-car telephones are no longer associated with the jet setters of this world. It is an efficient tool of work and I predict that many of our future customers will be the drivers of commercial vehicles, for whom instant communication at all times is a vital necessity."

The Apple Macintosh - Why 1984 Wasn't Like '1984'

1984 - Side-stepping Orwell's version - exciting times...

The new Apple Macintosh came with a computer mouse. The first commercial system sold with a mouse, the Xerox 8010 Information System in 1981, had a purchase price of over $20,000! The Apple Mac was an exciting piece of computer kit which cost much less.

The original 1984 Macintosh blurb...

Introducing Macintosh

In the olden days, before 1984, not very many people used computers - for a very good reason.    

Not very many people knew how.

And not very many people wanted to learn.

After all, in those days it meant listening to your stomach growl in computer seminars. Falling asleep over computer manuals. And staying awake nights to memorize commands so complicated you'd have to be a computer to understand them.

Then, on a particularly bright day in California, some particularly bright engineers had a brilliant idea: since computers are so smart, wouldn't it make sense to teach computers about people, instead of teaching people about computers?

So it was that those very engineers worked long days and late nights - teaching tiny silicon chips all about people. How they make mistakes and change their minds. How they label their file folders and save old telephone numbers. How they labor for their livelihoods. And doodle in their spare time.

For the first time in recorded computer history, hardware engineers actually talked to software engineers in a moderate tone of voice. And both became united by a common goal to build the most powerful, most transportable, most flexible, most versatile computer not-very-much-money could buy.

And when the engineers were finally finished, they introduced us to a personal computer so personable it can practically shake hands.

And so easy to use, most people already know how.

They didn't call it the QZ190, or the Zpchip 5000.

They called it Macintosh.

'Ere, that's not a mouse - they go "eek, eek" and run up your trouser leg!

An advertisement from the "Cambridge Evening News" (England), May 1985. 

Actually, while 1984 wasn't like Orwell's '1984' I sometimes think the present day is rather.

Great Cubes Of Our Time - Rubik's And The Pye Tube Cube...

Fabulous 1983 ad from Readers' Digest. The Pye Tube Cube was released in late 1982. This dinky clock radio, cassette, TV combo quickly found a home in my bedroom after I bought one from my Auntie Audrey's mail order catalogue in 1983. And, of course, it wasn't the only cube making waves in the 1980s. There was Rubik's Cube - taking over the world in 1981 after its arrival in 1980. My Tube Cube was white. You can see it in the photograph of my bedroom below from 1986. It was my main telly until 1987 when I invested in a rented colour set (flatter, squarer, tube) and a rented VCR - my very first VCR! But I kept my Tube Cube until the early 1990s when I flogged it. Fond memories.

The Tube Cube was first advertised on TV on the opening programme of TV-am in 1983.


My bedroom in spring, 1986. I had originally thought this picture dated from 1985, but the Smash Hits Pop Charts recorder on the wall revealed my folly.

1981 - A Hoover Called Henry...

1981 was an eventful year - the riots, the Rubik's, the Royal Wedding, the New Romantics, the recession, Only Fools And Horses, the launch of the Space Shuttle, the CB radio craze, the first London Marathon... and Henry the vacuum cleaner. Ever had a Henry? They were created by a company called Numatic International in 1981 and have since become a friendly and familiar companion to jolly up the naff task of hovering. Henry has developed a family - including George, Charles and Hetty - and is still going strong today.

Hats off to Henry. A hoover with a smiling face was certainly a novel idea and, as we love a bit of whimsy, we adore it.

Here's the lovely Hetty. We think she's Henry's sister.

These days you can even get a mini-Henry for hoovering your desktop - which, judging by the amount of muck in our keyboard, is a great idea. We didn't have Henry desktop hoovers in 1981. But then we didn't have desktops either.

Computer Technology 1988 - IT For The Terrified...

TV Times, 10/11/1988: IT for the Terrified -

1: STORMY FRIDAY

Our world is increasingly dominated by new technology. So how can ordinary people be expected to understand what is happening?

Those were strange days indeed! I never thought I'd get to grips with computer technology back then - ever! I simply couldn't imagine it - the whole thing was far too complicated and what would be the point? I was far from being alone...

But the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 would end up bringing computers into just about ALL our lives.

Good programme, IT For The Terrified - I'd love to see it again. It would be quite nostalgic and fascinatingly dated!

Introducing the first mobile phone - the DynaTAC 8000x

The first commercially available handheld cellular phone ever was unveiled in 1983 (although, according to Motorola, they weren't available to consumers until 1984). Motorola had invested fifteen years of research and $100 million in the advancement of cellular technology, and the story stretched back much further than that. The first handheld mobile was called the DynaTAC 8000X and was unveiled on March 6th. It was, of course, a brick. At a price of $3,995 it wasn't for everybody.

If the first commercially available mobile was a brick, boggle at the thought of the first working Motorola prototype ten years earlier which has been described as a boot! Motorola built several prototype models between 1973 and 1983.

And we ended up with a brick.

Rudy Krollop, one of the original Motorola designers, said recently: "In 1983, the notion of simply making wireless phone calls was revolutionary and it was an exciting time to be developing the technology at Motorola."

England's first mobile phone call was in 1985.

30 Years Of The Mobile Phone

Nice brick, mateyboots! The DynaTAC 8000x - the very first hand-held cell phone on the market. The year? 1984!

Crikey! Go back thirty-one years to 1983 and you couldn't have owned a cell phone - and had probably never even dreamt of such a thing! Weird, eh?

Motorola unveiled the first hand-held cell phone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x in '83, but it wasn't commercially available until 13 March 1984! And it was a brick. Cellular technology had taken decades of research, Motorola had been involved since 1968, but it wasn't until 1973 that a test call was made on an even larger prototype phone (nicknamed "the boot"!). The "boot" was not designed for marketing.

"The first [phones] we made were a research product," recalls Rudy Krollop, Motorola designer. "The [first prototype] DynaTAC wasn't designed to be manufactured and mass produced. Plus, the FCC was giving us all kinds of problems, so to design something we could manufacture sucked up 10 years. We were very busy."

Several prototypes were made between 1973 and 1983 and then... bingo! Of course, here in England, you couldn't have got involved in the fun of wielding a brick until 1985 - the first UK cellphone call was made on 1st January that year - by comedian Ernie Wise.

Mr Yuppie proudly wields his brick in 1985.

Expensive, hefty things ("yuppie toys"!) and horribly analogue, they were still the start of a revolution. Of course, analogue was rather naff when it came to reception at times, but fear not - the 1980s had things in hand. The GSM system we currently use had been in development since 1982, and received approval in 1987. It was implemented in the 1990s.

Love 'em or hate 'em? I'm not that mad on 'em myself, although they DO have their uses.

But sometimes I wish it was 1983.

Rucked-up shoulder pads and a lovely mobile - all the rage for the yuppie set of the mid-to-late 1980s.

E-Mails: 1980s Flexi-Lamps, And A Sharp Radio, TV, Cassette Combination...

Laura has written for help in dating a couple of items she has recently found in her store room.

Both look '80s, but I'd love to be able to date them properly!

Well, Laura, going on the descriptions you sent, I think the red domed flexi desk lamp you mention came from Habitat, first appearing as "New" in the 1982/1983 catalogue. It was available in red or black.

The Sharp TV, radio, cassette combination stumped me at first, but I think I've found it in the Spring/Summer Brian Mills mail order catalogue. Hope these are the items you have!

Pricing Guns Versus Bar Codes...

 

Lovely 1980s Cadbury's Wispa chocolate bar (read our article on Wispa here), with bar code and sticky price label. 18p! And they were even cheaper if you bought them from a supermarket. I haven't seen any sticky little price labels on anything for ages. The bar code, making a determined onslaught in the 1980s, began turning those friendly (sometimes!) folks with the pricing guns, trotting around the supermarket aisles, into an endangered species.

The 1980s saw huge technological changes erupting into our lives - the arrivals of various early and hugely influential computers, the first commercial computer mouse and mobile phones, satellite TV, Microsoft Windows, the compact disc, the C5 car (OK, not a great hit), the UK's first debit card - which sent plastic money into the ascendancy... plus, VCRs (you could always rent if you couldn't buy) and microwave ovens were also hitting the mainstream... yep, the decade positively crackled with electrically charged change.

And this was reflected in the shops, too. Slowly at first, the bar code began to make its presence felt. Sainsbury's, for instance, installed its first bar code scanning tills in 1982, and gradually these were rolled out throughout its stores. A great friend of mine who worked at a large Sainsbury's store out in the sticks in the mid-1980s, told me the story of the scanner tills arrival at her store:

"The beeping noise drove us all bats at first - and you could hear it in your head when you got home at night. I think it was louder with the early tills. Of course, now we take it as a part of everyday life, but I got married in 1986, shortly after the new tills arrived at the store I worked at, and I remember, on my honeymoon, thinking I heard a beep in the hotel bedroom at a very, well... to avoid being crude I'll call it a very 'romantic' moment. I think I was a bit befuddled with wine, because I interrupted proceedings to ask my new hubby: 'Was that a beep?' Good job he worked at Sainsbury's too, because he understood perfectly!"

 Johnny Ball's Think Box, 1982. Look - no bar code!

Incidentally, I was a great bookworm, and found the arrival of bar codes on book covers in the early 1980s positively hideous. I loved (and still do love) books, and bar codes printed on the back of each new purchase looked ugly and alien to me. And, at that time, I couldn't understand just what purpose they could have! Of course, the bar codes needed to be in place on merchandise before shops could invest in the equipment to use them.

 

Weetabix box from 1987, featuring one of the Weetabix skinheads in trendy hip hop garb doing a spot of breaking. The cereal was fifty-six pence way back then (sell-by date Aug '87) and the box has both price label and bar code (the bar code was on the other end). Until supermarkets were equipped with scanner tills, the pricing gun continued to be an essential tool. This particular purchase was made at a small Sainsbury's store and, whilst the supermarket chain installed its first bar code scanners in 1982, it would seem that by 1987 this particular store was still without them.

1984: Some Popular Computers And Games - Remember Frogger, Galaxy Invader 1000, Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers And The Commodore 16?

Double page advertisement from 1984 for the Commodore 16 complete starter pack - Everything you need To start computing in one box.

Some computers and games featured in the Janet Frazer autumn and winter 1984/5 mail order catalogue.

Fun with the likes of Zaxxon and Sensor Travel Chess. The Tomy Skyfighters "brings you realistic sights and sounds. Press the top control buttons to manoeuvre your 'Skyfighters' against the enemy squadron."

The Atari 600XL and the Commodore 64.

Games for the Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum 48K and Atari 600XL and 400/800.

The new streamlined-look Atari 2600 console and games galore - including the delectable Ms Pacman.

Goodies here include the Philips Videopac G7000, a "boss joystick" suitable for Atari 2600 video game, Atari computers, Commodore 64 and Vic 20 computers, and lots of lovely games like Donkey Kong and Zaxxon.

Astro Wars, Star Force, Munchman, Firefox, BMX Flyer (BMX without the cuts and grazes), Krazy Kong and Multigame - "6 CHALLENGING GAMES IN ONE PLUS BONUS GAME".
 

Here are the CGL mini arcade games Frogger, Amidar and Galaxy Invader 1000. Such memories! Details are also listed of the items below.

CGL - Game and Watch - "The games you can take anywhere for those boring moments". Here are Snoopy, Donkey Kong, Mario's Bombs Away, Donkey Kong Junior, Mario's Cement Factory, Pinball, Mario Brothers and Popeye.

Living Life '80s Style... Part 2

Returning to the theme of living life in the style of The Glorious 1980s, how about buying some lovely knitwear or sweatshirts from the decade? I mean, just look at the two examples above. What more encouragement do you need?

 Perhaps a look at this might just tip you over the edge? Mmmm, lovely, is it not?

 And I bet these 1980s beauties leave you speechless.

To help create your ... er... beautiful '80s ambiance, scatter some genuine "of-the-decade" magazines about. Here, Nik Kershaw and Paul Young serve as an authentic reminder of how wonderful hairstyles were in the mid-1980s. All together now: "Near a tree by a river there's a hole in the ground..."

Lovely Pye "Red Box" TV here - dating from 1984. It won't do HD, but you can hook it up to your DVD player and watch '80s classic telly anyway.

"You make it Neet Weet, mate!" The Weetabix skinheads debuted in March 1982 and were created by Trevor Beattie, now of fcuck fame. They were called Bixie, Brains, Crunch, Dunk and Brian (he who said "OK!") and trundled on through the rest of the 1980s, last appearing in November 1989. During that time they dropped the skinhead chic (shame!) and went for more of a hip hop look, amongst other things.

Anyway, here's a lovely Weetabix kiddies' lunchbox from the mid-1980s. Great for carrying your '80s-style lunch to work in. What will it be? Packet of hobnobs? Makings of an exotic baked potato to pop in the works microwave? Spot of nouvelle cuisine? Pot Noodle? A Birds Eye Menu Master (Birds Eye's the bird of freedom, spread your wings and fly away...").

If you must have crisps, don't go for "common as muck" cheese and onion or smoky bacon. Make sure they're sour cream and chive or ham and mustard or something. Fancy crisps are a crucial style detail if you really want to create the mid-to-late 1980s time warp effect.

Something for the wall here - download a copy of Tim Berners-Lee's original diagram of the World Wide Web from 1989, its invention year, frame it, and display it prominently. Then, when some snobby, 80s-demeaning "friend" pops in and says: "Really! I don't understand your fixation with the 1980s! Nothing at all happened!" you can gesticulate grandly at your picture and  reply: "Pah! I beg to differ, mateyboots!"

And then waggle your Gordon The Gopher puppet at said "friend" until they go home. By bringing Gordon into play, you'll have convinced your "friend" that you're a very sad case indeed, and they probably won't bother you again.

Gilbert the snotty alien was an absolute wow in 1987 on kids' TV show Get Fresh, and graduated to his own series, Gilbert's Fridge, in 1988. This pic would look splendid over the fireplace in your '80s homage home, don't you think?

This is mine - a very '80s representation of a penny farthing bicycle which I bought from quite a posh gift shop when, in August 1986, I moved from a grotty bedsit into a house which I was allowed to rent at a knock-down price. It looked great on the black ash shelving unit. Happy days! Until April 1987 when my absentee landlord decided to sell his house and I moved into another grotty bedsit.

We're not finished living life '80s style... we'll return very soon with lorry loads of pendant lights, buckets of black ash, urban hordes of up-lighters, billions of red beds, dozens of director's chairs, mountains of Miami Vice chic and a monsoon  of hair gel and mousse...

Remember that, when it comes to the 1980s, more is more...

On Sale: Technology For 1980 And 1981...

The Tandy Electronics Catalogue, 1980-81, provides rich pickings for those wishing to relive technological memories of the first two years of the decade...

"Realistic prices"? Well, they were back then!

Love that wood effect surround - a popular feature on electronic gadgetry since the 1960s.

Note that the cheapest radio cassette recorder was £44-95 and the most expensive £129-95. Even the lowest price was a pretty serious cash layout for many people back then.

Radio cassette recorders were objects of desire for me and my mates in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Personal stereos were invented in 1979 in Japan, and although a few arrived here in 1980 under the name "Sony Stowaway" I'd never heard of them and couldn't have afforded one if I had. They weren't cheap and my family were very short on the dosh.

Ghetto blasters were further down the 1980s road, and so the big thing, the wonderful, sophisticated technology to own in 1980, was a radio cassette recorder. It took some saving for, but I convinced my parents that it would be tremendously economical in the long term. Just think of the benefits - no more buying records, you could just tape them off the radio. Actually, this wasn't as straight forward as it seemed as most DJs liked to "rabbit" over the intros and endings of the songs they played and so it was difficult to get a decent chunk of music, but we persevered and were happy with what we did get.

My radio cassette had a condenser microphone, so more fun could be had by making parodies of the BBC's radio soaps, Waggoners' Walk and The Archers.

"Oh gosh! Mr Tyson's fallen down the stairs! One must phone for an ambulance!" or "How dare you, Mr Gabriel, I'm a respectable woman, now are you going to eat those flies' cemetaries, or aren't you?"

We made dozens of episodes, with continuing storylines and daft cliffhangers.

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Was it fun?

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We thought so!

Tony Blackburn advertises Plustron in a newspaper ad from September 1980. 

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Love those "new for '81" cuddly radios! 

The Tandy AM Space Radio... the personal stereo did not arrive in England until 1980, as stated elsewhere in this post, but this was an interesting alternative. The lady appears to be enjoying herself...

Radio controlled fun... Vroom, Vroom!!!

We weren't allowed to use calculators at school. I was already quite familiar with the little perishers from TV appearances, but when I first handled one at work in 1982, I was initially a little flummoxed!

The TRS 80...

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Many developments were to take place in the 1980s which would bring computers into our homes and transform our lives, but in 1980 they were for boffins, Dr Who, ERNIE and making mistakes on your utility bills.

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The TRS 80 looks a bit like a microwave oven to me. Microwave ovens, although first marketed in the 1960s, were something else that I had never clapped eyes on back in 1980. Way out of our price range.

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Early in the 1980s, a cafe in my neighbourhood installed one for heating up food and the cry went out amongst us heathens: "It uses radiation! It'll kill you!"

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By the end of the decade, microwave ovens were pretty much a part of everyday life - even my dear old mum had one! Read more about the 1980s microwave oven revolution here.

Wow - sophisticated moments - mind blowing technology...