80s News Today

The March issue of Computer & Video Games arrived on newsstands in the early spring of 1983 like a cold wind slipping under the door of an old house you thought was safely locked. It was Issue 17, and on the cover—God help us—was Tom Baker's face, that long, watchful face of The Real Doctor Who, with the eyes that seemed to know too much, staring out from under the famous scarf as though he'd just stepped out of the shadows of a BBC corridor and into our world. The magazine smelled of fresh ink and cheap paper, the kind that yellows and brittles if you leave it too long in the attic. Kids flipped through it in ComputerLand and Waldenbooks, hearts beating a little faster because something impossible had happened. Buried inside, there it was: three full pages of BASIC code. Not a review. Not a screenshot (there were none to take). Just lines and lines of numbered statements, REMarks, GOTOs, and PRINTs that promised to summon something called Doctor Who: The Adventure onto yo...

America tuned its radios to American Top 40 on March 12, 1988 to find out who had topped the chart that week. Surely the top spot would be occupied by George Michael, listeners thought to themselves. Or maybe Chicago. Debbie Gibson. Richard Marx? Michael Jackson! Imagine their shock when host Casey Kasem announced Rick Astley had just seized the #1 spot, with the single "Never Gonna Give You Up." Americans didn't know it - hell, even Casey Kasem didn't know it - but they had been rickrolled for the first time. And it wouldn't be the last! Remember the video? It was a spectacle of 80s cheese so pure, so concentrated, it could have been sold by the slice. There was Rick, with that gravity-defying hair, that double-breasted suit that seemed to have a life of its own, dancing with an enthusiasm that bordered on…well, something. And the dancing! It was a series of moves that looked like he was trying to shake off an invisible swarm of bees. The reaction was immediate...

March 10th, 1980. Write that date down. Set it in stone. Because that was the day the invaders finally landed, right here in the living rooms of America, and we let them in. We welcomed them, even.  You remember, don’t you? The arcade—God, the arcade—had been your church. That dim, cigarette-smoke cathedral on Main Street where the machines glowed like hellfire and every quarter you dropped was a prayer. Space Invaders wasn’t just a game back then. It was the first real monster, the one that ate the entire industry whole in 1978 and kept right on chewing. Kids lined up six deep, feeding it silver like it was alive, watching those pixelated bastards descend in their slow, hypnotic lockstep while the soundtrack sped up and your heart tried to keep pace.  You paid your quarter—a shiny sacrificial offering—for three minutes of terror. And then, Game Over. You’d blow your allowance in twenty minutes, walk home broke and shaking, and dream about them all night—the endless onslaugh...

Thirty-five years ago today—March 7, 1989—Arista Records released the debut album by  Milli Vanilli , titled Girl You Know It’s True. Now, if you're under 30, you might be asking, "Milli who?" And if you're over 50, you're probably already shaking your head and muttering, "Oh no, not this again." But stick with me here. The album? Huge. Massive. Went six-times platinum. Spent weeks at number one. Had hits like "Girl You Know It's True," "Baby Don't Forget My Number," "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You," and of course "Blame It on the Rain." You couldn't turn on the radio without hearing one of these songs. It was everywhere. Grammy for Best New Artist in 1990. You remember Rob and Fab, right? Two fellas from Germany who looked like they’d been sculpted out of high-end marzipan. They had the spandex, they had the shoulder pads, they had the dance moves. The only thing they didn't have? Their own voices. T...

You have to understand, in those days, Clackamas wasn’t much more than a collection of blackberry brambles and gravel roads that didn't know where they were going. But Ernest Hahn had a vision, the kind of vision that smells like money and fresh asphalt. On March 6, 1981, that vision finally opened its eyes—a million square feet of retail muscle rising out of the Oregon mud like some prehistoric beast. They called it the Clackamas Town Center . The suburbs had been growing teeth out here for years—tract homes sprouting like mushrooms after a hard rain, young families moving in with station wagons full of kids and dreams no bigger than a backyard barbecue. But there'd been nothing to hold them together, no heartbeat. Just the long gray slog between home and whatever passed for downtown.  Then Ernest Hahn's people showed up, that California developer with the shark's smile and the patience of Job when it came to lawyers and environmental hearings. The land had once been e...

A very small thing happened to a great many people on March 5, 1981, and it was called the Sinclair ZX81 . The ZX81 was a computer that consisted almost entirely of Nothing. It had four chips. Not four hundred, not four thousand. Four. If you opened the casing, you’d find a vast, echoing plastic cavern that suggested the computer was actually just a very expensive place for a spider to raise a family. It came with one kilobyte of RAM. To put that into perspective for the modern reader (who likely has more computing power in their electric toothbrush than existed on the entire planet in 1954), one kilobyte is roughly the amount of memory required to remember a medium-sized grocery list, provided you don't buy any exotic cheeses with long names. And yet, it was magnificent. Or, at least, it looked magnificent in glossy magazine ads. It was a sleek, black wedge of plastic that looked like it had been fallen off the back of a passing UFO. It didn't have a keyboard so much as a ...

There’s a chill in the air of late, a final, biting breath of winter before the spring truly takes hold. I spent much of the morning in my study, a mug of ultimate hot chocolate at my elbow, and my mind went back…back to a warmer spring, many years ago. March 1980. A different world. A different age. I was younger then, and my dreams were full of starships and dragons. And it was in that spring that a new kind of magic arrived, contained not in a leather-bound tome, but in a small black plastic cartridge. I’m speaking, of course, of Adventure . It has near finished its fourth decade, that little cartridge, but I remember when it was a knight in shining armor to those of us who craved more than just another round of Pong. Warren Robinett, the sorcerer who crafted this world of thirty screens, had to forge his own tools to do it. Atari’s high lords were oft cool to the idea of a graphical quest, and Robinett was like to be punished for his ambition. But he persisted, whilst others would ...

March 3, 1980 The wind that came clawing across the Missouri River that Monday morning had that specific Midwestern edge, the kind that seeks out the gaps in your woolen coat and whispers things about hypothermia and the brevity of life. But nobody in the line looping around the corner of 110th and Metcalf seemed to care. They were vibrating. Not from the cold, but from the kind of feverish, electric anticipation that usually only precedes a new Star Wars movie or a new menu item at Taco Bell. They were waiting for the doors to swing open on a brand-new concept, a sprawling, fluorescent kingdom built from cardboard, grease, and dreams. They were waiting for ShowBiz Pizza Place . Inside the brand-new ShowBiz Pizza Place, the air was a different animal entirely. It was thick with the scent of bubbling mozzarella, scorched arcade capacitors, and the peculiar, ozone-heavy musk of hydraulic fluid.  It was the first of its kind, you see. The original. The alpha predator. We didn’t know i...

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — MARCH 2, 1980 You feel the money here before you even see it. It’s in the air—a subtle, aerosolized scent of alpine ozone, refined petroleum, and fury. You’re at the Geneva Salon International de l’Automobile. The Palexpo hall is a shimmering sea of European refinement, a hushed cathedral of velour and wood-grain. Forget the champagne—though, God knows, it’s flowing like the Rhône—forget the couture—every woman in the room seems to be made entirely of silk and diamonds—because what we have right here is a revelation. They call it the Audi Quattro . Now, look at it! It doesn't have the languid, serpentine curves of a Pininfarina dream. No, no! It is all V-form and flared arches, a squat, muscular Teutonic bruiser that seems to be gripping the carpet with its very soul. The engineers from Ingolstadt—men with slide-rule eyes and hearts of pure silicon—have brought forth a beast with four-wheel drive. The gathered gentry of the automotive press, the men ...

Benny Hill was one of many British cultural phenomenons to cross the Atlantic during the 1980s. But while TV viewers on this side of the pond were limited to wondering if Mr. Hill and Ozzy Osbourne had ever been seen together in the same room, Brits were busy becoming the ribald scamp via their home computers. On March 1, 1986, Benny Hill's Madcap Chase began to play out on the ZX Spectrum.  While the game begins with a photo-realistic scanned image of the comedian, the surprisingly large sprite of Mr. Hill players controlled looked more like Austin Powers when scrolling sideways - a remarkable feat, given that the swinging spy character wouldn't even be conceived of for another five years. Only when he turns to face the camera is he somewhat recognizable, chiefly on the basis of his desperate grin and granny glasses, and the aura of impending disaster that surrounds him like cheap aftershave. Benny lopes along with a gait that suggests both unholy enthusiasm and imminent card...

Now, friends, gather ’round while I tell you of a most peculiar contraption that has found its way into the parlors of the nation this February of 1989. It is called the Nintendo Entertainment System, a grey box of electronic wizardry that promises to transport a body into worlds unseen without ever having to scrub a single fence-post. It seems the folks at Seta have seen fit to take the American hero Tom Sawyer—a boy who, I can testify, has a natural aversion to anything resembling honest labor—and trap him inside a plastic cartridge. They call it The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , though I suspect Tom himself would find the whole business far more exhausting than a Sunday school lesson. In this digital diversion, you take up the role of Tom, though he’s looking a bit more square-edged than I remember. He’s wandering through his own dreams, it seems, which is just like a boy of his temperament. But instead of the peaceful Mississippi, he’s beset by all manner of fantastical nuisances—...

It was a Friday, the kind of gray, late-February afternoon where the winter is tired of being winter but spring hasn’t yet found its courage. February 27, 1987. A day like any other for the folks in Westin Hills, maybe, but for the rest of us—the ones who spent our pocket change on popcorn and terror—it was the day the Boogeyman finally got a face. Or at least, a history. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors didn’t just slouch into theaters; it kicked the door down. We’d seen Freddy before, sure. We knew the sweater, the hat, the glove that looked like it had been forged in the basement of some hellish hardware store. But Dream Warriors was different. It was the moment Wes Craven came back to his creation and whispered, "Let’s show them why he’s really mean." See, horror is a funny thing. It works best in the dark, but if you want it to truly haunt a man, you have to give the monster a soul—even if that soul is as black as a coal chute. This movie did the heavy liftin...

February of 1987. The shadows are long, and the winds are brisk in Maryland. And a new tome from Stephen King has arrived at Crown Books. A book quite unlike his others, a story that still lingers in the smoke and shadow of my mind. That day saw the publication of The Eyes of the Dragon in a grand, illustrated hardcover by Viking.  The Eyes of the Dragon wasn't a story to curdle your blood or make you jump at shadows (not mostly). It was a fable. A high fantasy. A story written, as the legend goes, not for the millions of horror hounds who ravenously consumed his tales of possessed cars and vampiric towns, but for his own daughter, Naomi. She had asked her father to write something she could read. Something not too scary. And so, he did. He traded the dark, grimy streets of Castle Rock for the medieval kingdom of Delain. He set aside the monsters from beyond the graves and the stars and gave us the classic archetypes of high fantasy: a noble king (King Roland), a beautiful a...

The snow had started again that February, the kind of late-winter storm that comes in sideways and stays, blanketing the little Maryland town in white silence. Kids trudged home from school with heads down, boots crunching, dreaming already of the weekend and the glow of television screens. But in one basement on Maple Street, the kind of basement that smelled of damp concrete and old Christmas lights, something beyond their imagination was waiting to be born. The date was February 25, 1986. A company called Konami released a Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge— Gradius . Now, Gradius was a mean piece of work. It was a scrolling space shooter that didn't just want your quarters; it wanted your dignity. The arcade version had been out for months, a cruel, beautiful machine that ate quarters like a dragon hoards gold. Too hard, they said. Too punishing. The ships exploded in seconds, shredded by enemy fire, and the pilots—those pale teenagers with shaking hands—walked away cursin...

The wind off the Chesapeake has a way of biting through a denim jacket like a piranha on meth, and on February 24, 1987, it was howling. But inside that sprawling slab of brick and glass in Glen Burnie, the air smelled like buttered popcorn, Orange Julius, and the kind of high-octane optimism you can only find in a suburban shopping mecca. Marley Station Mall was finally open. It sat there on Ritchie Highway like a landed mothership, all gleaming neon and promises. For the folks in Anne Arundel County, it wasn't just a place to buy a pair of Toughskins at Sears or a blender at Hecht’s. It was a temple of the New Age. You walked through those sliding glass doors and the world turned from February gray to a kingdom of chrome and potted ferns. Inside, it was brighter than day. Skylights poured white light across marble-look tile. Escalators moved like patient rivers, carrying laughing teenagers up to the second level where the arcades waited with their Pac-Man beeps and the first whi...

In the brisk February of 1988, the Atari computer owners of Britain discovered a small, digital miracle called Henry’s House . Now, the Atari 8-bit family was, by 1988, a bit like a venerable old relative who insists on wearing a tuxedo to a backyard barbecue—charming, surprisingly capable, but everyone suspected their time was nearly up. Yet, into this sunset period stepped young Henry. The premise of Henry’s House is one of those things that makes you want to lie down in a darkened room with a damp cloth over your eyes. It is a platform game about Prince Harry of Wales. Yes, that Prince Harry. The one who, at the time, was a toddler whose primary achievements involved being third in line to a very large throne and occasionally wearing adorable jumpers. The reception, dear reader, was not merely positive. It was glowing. Magazines that normally reserved their highest praise for things like "slightly less flickery than last month’s offering" suddenly found themselves reachin...

I have come here not to bury Kilroy, but to praise him. Or, more accurately, it. Kilroy Was Here is the brilliant concept album released by Styx on February 22, 1983. It's also the album that supposedly destroyed the band, and has been lambasted and mocked by many a music critic and fair-weather Styx fan who possess an irrational hatred of Dennis DeYoung. And by members of Styx who possess an equally-irrational hatred of Dennis DeYoung. Woe unto them who cannot realize that without Dennis DeYoung, most of the band's fanbase and record buyers would never have heard of Styx. Rock critics already had their sharp snark out for the band once it gained megasuccess in the late 70s, and, look, how many times do we look back at a biting critique of an album in Rolling Stone that reads as positively moronic thirty years later? A lot. Critics hate art that is understood and embraced by a circle wider than themselves. But the turncoats among Styx fans cannot be excused so easily. As far ...

Dateline: February 21, 1980. Columbus, Ohio. (Where else?) In the heart of the great American boredom, in a sleek, air-conditioned corporate bunker of polished steel and beige carpeting, the pioneering dial-up online service CompuServe flipped a switch. Click. And just like that, the universe cracked open! They called it the "CB Simulator." Hah! "Citizen's Band Simulator." Can you feel the mid-century corporate desperate-for-relevance clinging to that name? Like calling a spacesuit a "very fancy raincoat." They were trying to capture the raw, screeching energy of the CB radio, that great diesel-fumed trucker opera of the 1970s. But this wasn't 10-4, good buddy, on the I-95. This was something else entirely. This was the future, man. This was 300-baud acoustic couplers mating with Ma Bell’s lines in a screech that sounded like two tomcats being electrocuted in a tin can. This was phosphor-green letters crawling across your $2,000 CRT like divine r...

February 20, 1984. The year George Orwell warned us about has already arrived, only instead of Big Brother it’s Maggie in her power-blue suit and the dole queue snaking around the Arndale Centre like some great socialist python digesting yesterday’s dreams. It's Ronnie in an arms race, Dodge Caravans in suburban driveways, and corporate megamergers. The kids are wearing anoraks the color of wet concrete, the radios are pumping Duran Duran and Culture Club and all that glossy, shoulder-padded, pastel-synth nonsense about Rio and karma chameleons, and the newspapers are full of gold medal winners, nuclear nightmares, and Princess Di’s latest hat.  And then—wham—Rough Trade Records, that scruffy little indie bunker in London that smelled of damp cardboard and revolutionary zeal, ships out the vinyl. The Smiths . Self-titled. Ten tracks of pure, unadulterated Northern English misery wrapped in the most glorious jangle you ever heard. The cover: some poor doomed American actor from a 19...

Bethesda, Maryland - February 19, 1981 A new arcade machine appeared at the Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour at the Westwood Shopping Center today. The air was heavy with the scent of hot Old Time Franks, Holland Dutch Chocolate sauce, and butterscotch candy. A player piano's automated keys frantically rippled up and down like John Wesley Hardin was expected through the doors any second. And at the center of this electric storm, standing like some gleaming, alien monolith, was the Defender cabinet. Its marquee, a jagged burst of purple and blue, practically vibrated with the promise of high-tech violence. You have to picture the scene, the sheer, unadulterated chaos of it. Until this glorious, terrifying Thursday, video games were...polite. Simple, even. Pac-Man was a cheerful, yellow glutton, blithely navigating a maze. Space Invaders was a slow, methodical march of descending marching bands. Defender? Defender was an assault. It was the digital equivalent of being shoved into a ...