92 Old-School Gadgets That Show Just How Different Technology Looked In The ’80s

I bought two on etsy, apparently I could not live without them as my mother gave them away. I also have my Polaroid 1000 camera and a Care Bears lunch box and bedsheets from 1983. Looking at them now and they make me smile.

I got my kid a mini one to play on the bus to school a couple of months ago.

Those originated in the 40s and 50s, I believe.

How come those aren't alphabetized !?

My mother and I would play Pong for a nickel a game 😀

Multa Nocte (she/her 8647)

Multa Nocte (she/her 8647)

Community Member • points

posts

comments

upvotes

FollowUnfollow

Premium

Premium user. Get details.

I forgot about these!

I now have a Sangean DT200 as Sony no longer makes these. Just the AM/FM radio. It's used for my daily walks and frequent bike rides, not sure if it picks up anything besides NPR, but I assume it does.

An oversimplification! Should include "Take the film to the shop, wait and then pay more money to get it back." Which reminds me: I should probably put my Pentax ME Super up for sale.

I had one that was 4 CD's on both sides and it was completley full. It was stolen out of my car. :( I was so sad. . All that amazing music I lost. Not to mention, all that time and money collecting, wasted.

These guys are responsible for us still using the letter 'C' for hard drives

I love that 1980s hair.

I didn't have a CD player in my car so I got that converter thing that plugged your Discman into the tape deck. 😂 You had to be careful about rough roads or the CD would skip like crazy.

That and having to hard boil an egg for an hour to make a new ball. ;-)

I can hear this photo!

Bakelite!

Say, what? What sort of deranged mind came up with *this* advert? I'd say something coherent about it, only all the fuses have blown in my brain. 🤣 (PS: come 1982 here in the UK, we had the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro (just about). The former was cheaper and brilliant for games; the latter was more powerful and also brilliant for games.)

The delicate artistry it took to make the games sit JUST RIGHT so you could play, was magically frustrating.

Yup! We thought it was so cool!

My cellphone nowadays

BACK UP! You're too close to the TV, you'll go blind!

I still remember shutting my Sun workstation with sync; sync; halt.

Either that, or you could post them off for developing and printing.

I could not imagine a life without the Sony walkman I had. It was sooo cool to have music with you, wherever you went.

McFly, you'll never amount to anything because you're a slacker, just like your old man - or something like that.

ET Phone Home!

Still got 1300 VHS cassettes, home-recorded, in my attic.

I never had a TRS-80, but I bought one of those desks for use with my Heathkit H-89.

I have a clock radio very like that beside my bed.

From the OP 'looks like the control center for a shuttle simulator.' and 'I don’t know which center, but I do know she programmed the machines that they used to train pilots.' and 'She said “it was either building 5 or 35 (leaning towards 35) it was just like the crew training sims in 5. In 5, first shift they train astronauts, 2nd shift the trainers worked there, 3rd shift us (developers) had access. 35 is where we had round the clock access to work and the computer systems were almost exactly the same. I think I’m doing flight software integration in n the picture.” '

The idea was that dust and dirt may have gotten into the works and interfered with the contacts making a solid connection. Blowing was intended to get rid of any intruding foreign particles.

Was that the game that had those cool vector graphics as you shot down tie fighters?

I had that hair in ‘82! 🤣

I still haven't gotten over my dysentery.

Dorothy Reiser

Dorothy Reiser

Community Member • points

posts

comments

upvotes

FollowUnfollow

Premium

Premium user. Get details.

We still have ours. Dr. Mario for hours.

Yes and it still works

Janissary35680

Janissary35680

Community Member • points

posts

comments

upvotes

FollowUnfollow

Premium

Premium user. Get details.

USD 3,995 (1984) ~ USD 13,000 (2026).

"Mega Drive in other parts of the world..." it is the Mega Drive everywhere except in the US... including in it's land of origin Japan!

These were great. My Dad got us one, not that me or my brother had any musical talent.

I can hear her talking to DI Sam Tyler...

Those flesh colored pants, though! I had to look twice!

The reason for the 512K Mac was so that you could use the blasting thing without having to keep swapping floppy discs in and out. The original 128K 'thin Mac' (this being the 'fat Mac') was a bit of a nightmare to use. The original MacOS had a somewhat shonky sort-of-not-really virtual memory system. Basically, if you didn't have the boot disc in the machine, you were going to have to put it back in at some point while using the machine... A second, external floppy disc drive was a very useful accessory.

How rich was this person?!

I beleive this is the third time someone mentions walkman.

My BFF's basement still looks like this. Her parents never updated their house at all. It's like a time capsule.

Ahem, that is a ghetto blaster, not a radio cassette player

... ... I think that might be Traci Lords.

I remember SO wanting one of those!

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

Oh, those 's3xy' rubber keys! Mmm! 🤣 *Slightly* easier to use than the ZX81/80 predecessor membrane keyboards, but not a lot. 🤨

Nah, the cord’s not stretched out enough! 🤣

I had the databank watch, which could store names and phone numbers in its massive 1K memory!

Cute photo, but that's not a Sony Walkman - whatever it is, it's bigger than a Walkman.

KFC UNIFORM 1980s

See that TV in the pic? You hooked it up to a regular TV with a VCR attached to it. Then put the rental VCR tape into the VCR hooked up to the regular TV and played it on both TVs at the same time. Meantime, you have a blank VCR tape in the TV in the picture on record and now you can record your rental VCR tape.

She is sitting so close she can probably see the three different color pips that make up every picture on the tv.

(Good grief. 🙄 So, here's a list of 1980s tech, and I mention as a point of fact that this machine is definitely 1970s tech - and apparently that remark is so offensive it's picked up enough downvotes to get it hidden? Wow. Just wow. 🤣🤣🤣 )

This was end of 1990s

Missed the assignment by 20 years.

That's a 1984 Apple IIc with the optional mouse. Came out the same year as the original Mac. Oh god why do I know this stuff? 😂🧐

Their dial tone was ribbit

My mom was convinced these places were absolute dens of inequities

Are they about to have a duel?

Told Dish to pound sand after ANOTHER rate increase. Now use wifi and OTA broadcasting. Was annoyed back when they tightened the TV bands and we lost ABC and NBC, but local station now has about 10 stations, oldies, etc..

Ye olde joystick!

The real question then, is DO YOU REGRET THIS SITTING POSTURE hahahaha! I was a sloucher too, and now my back makes noises when I get up from the setee

"And - Be careful out there!"