Customer Reviews

80s Tech

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Integrated circuits (ICs) became cheap and prevalent in the 1980s, thanks to Moore's Law (power doubles in about 18 months). Intel's 8088 chip (1981) had 29,000 transistors; its latest has 713 million.

Wozniak designed Apple's initial hardware and wrote the software as well; Jobs was the business mind. Wozniak also developed GUI for Lisa, but it didn't sell well because it required lots of costly memory; later was updated to become the Macintosh.

ICs then brought arcade gaming, home games (eg. Atari), VCRs, the tape wars (Betamax's slightly better quality, vs. VHS' cheaper and longer, allowing an entire movie), Walkmans, CD players, Discman, camcorders, miniature headphones, and cell phones - all in the 1980s. Sony was a leader in all, except VHS and cell phones.

DeLorean brought out his own car design - popular at first, then sales stalled because it was underpowered and overpriced. Simon and Rubik's Cube were also immensely popular.

Bottom Line: The 80s gave birth to numerous new products that are being further refined today.

This was a good DVD. However, as a critical diva, let me get my one criticism out of the way. This work spends a long time on the De Lorean car. The only time I ever saw that was in "Back to the Future" (and no, I never bothered to see the sequels, especially with Michael J. Fox's whiny, annoying voice). I have never seen a person drive one nor talk of wanting one. Perhaps there were few automotive technological innoverations in that decade, but that segment was a time killer.
This work is unique in two ways: it didn't just focus on the mechanical, engineering-based features of 80s inventions, but it also looked seriously at how these products were marketed. So we learn how porn videos helped promote VCRs over Betamaxes, for example. Again, this is science-y, so Teddy Ruxpin, "The Breakfast Club," and Lionel Richie's "Dancing on a Ceiling" don't come up.
If electronic toys seem like they are the preoccupation of males, this work strokes that images as all the interviewees are male. A whole bunch of them have chin dimples too, for some reason.
Still, you see walkmans, and Donkey Kong, and an 8-track being thrown away, so this will remind you of 20 years ago. It is not humorous like VH-1's "I Love the 80s." I'm not sure what viewers below the age of 25 would feel about seeing this. But if you are older, you may really get a kick out of it.