Tag: 80s
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Liminal Christmas
Back in the 1960s and 70s, before everyone and their uncle had Christmas lights and inflatable eye candy – the electrical holiday treat was animatronics at the mall. Our mall was no exception. There were animals and small human-like creatures who might have been dressed in Victorian clothing that populated the winding path to Santa.…
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Leisure Suit Larry
Our beige computer sat in the corner of the TV room on the desk that ran the width of the room, butteressed on the left end with a refinished lovely wood file cabinet. It sat in the corner just shy of the front windows. The beige computer replaced the TI-99. I thought it was an…
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Prodigal Sears
In a prominent location facing out from an end cap sat a TI-99 display at Sears. My brother and I always got sucked into its gravitational pull. We’d play games then badger whichever parental unit was with us to purchase said game. The mall was a decent distance from our house and we didn’t go…
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Radio Shack …
As I’ve dug around in my memory banks, one thing eluded me. I didn’t remember where my dad bought his tech supplies from. I remember the Computer Shopper catalog. I remember playing games on the TI display at Sears at the mall which was about a 30 minutes drive from our house. I…
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Return of the Electric Typewriter
For half of my senior year of high school, I was without the family computer as it had moved to Colorado with my family. I had to use my mom’s electric typewriter and lots of whiteout. I’d take it out of its hard plastic case and set it up on Grandma’s dining room table and…
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Pizza & Pac Man
My first arcade game was at Pizza Hut and it was a cocktail table Pac Man game. It sat by the emergency exit door, on the path to the bathroom. It was a treat to play it. I wasn’t good at it but played it with my brother or family friends. On Friday nights, we…
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VCR Machine
My parents got a VCR for the family one Christmas. We weren’t earlier adaptors like some folks in town. Some family friends across town always had the latest tech. They had at least two VCRs and had thousands of tapes. Tapes were everywhere with handwritten labels. The quality varied wildly. You had to watch one…
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The Clicker
I have two in the living room – one for the rarely used DVD player and the other for the Roku tv which is constantly misplaced. Most of the televisions and media devices I’ve purchased as an adult all came with remote controls. The remote that came with our sound system had a…
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The Little Professor
I didn’t have one but my friend did. I remember the bright golden yellow color and the red LED screen. I was jealous. It was so cool and fancy. The Little Professor was a backward functioning calculator that was released in 1976 by Texas Instruments. It would ask a question and you’d answer. 3 +…
code & carrot 