A few interesting tidbits from the Eighties
The Decade of Technology Revolution, Anti Nuclear Protests, Aids, Cold War, Lebanon, Apartheid, Terrorism,
In 1980 a new house cost $68,714.00 and by 1989 was $120,00.00
In 1980 the average cost of new car was $7,210.00 and by 1989 was $15,400.00
and check some of these inflation and interest rate figures
1980 Yearly Inflation Rate USA 13.58% UK 18%
1980 Interest Rates Bank of England 14.00% Federal Reserve 21.50%
1981 Yearly Inflation Rate USA 10.35% UK 11.9%
1981 Bank of England 14.38% Federal Reserve 15.75%
Some was caused by the war in the middle east and the oil embargo but also prices and wages just going out of control
A Chevy Camero Coupe cost $7,571
Pontiac Grand AM cost $9,965
Amiga 500 with Color Monitor cost $849
Hands Free Operating Car Phone cost $788
And from our 80's homes
4 bedroom Cape Cod home in Elyria Ohio with 2 car attached garage cost $53,900 in 1985
A few Events and interesting developments
The Cold War ended
Falkland Islands War between Argentina and United Kingdom
A major Famine in Ethiopia and the surrounding region
The continued use of terrorism including Panam Flight 103 bombing and bombings in France by by Carlos the Jackal
The birth of the IBM PC starting with MS-DOS and finishing the decade with Windows a GUI Graphical User Interface
Bulletin boards which evolved to what we now know as the Internet
Arcade games appeared including the most popular Space Invaders and Pac Man
The birth and quick growth of Mobile Phones
The world started to understand the concept of Global Warming and mans impact
The birth of a number of Cable Channels we use today including The Weather Channel, MTV, Cable News Network CNN,
Ronald Reagan Elected President of the USA
Iran and Iraq war which lasts most of the decade
The First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia
Riots in The US and UK in inner city areas
Berlin Wall comes down
Fashions and Clothes
More and more people are dressing for success including women wearing The woman’s work suit , especially in the latter years and the the term “yuppie” was used quite a bit during the late 1980s.
Primetime Soap Operas
Many consider the Eighties the heyday of Primetime Soap Operas and provided many of the most successful prime time serials including Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest which often featured the comings and goings of wealthy families and their personal and big-business.
Dallas ( 1978 to 1991 ) Based around the wealthy Texas Ewing Family with it's bad boy character of "J.R." Ewing Jr. the greedy, scheming oil baron.
Knots Landing ( 1979 to 1993 ) Though initially not as popular as Dallas, Knots Landing runs for fourteen seasons outlasting Dallas itself.
Dynasty ( 1981 to 1989 ) The series run on the ABC network and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family from Denver, Colorado and from the second season featured the British actress Joan Collins which together with great writers and the addition of Joan Collins, Dynasty became the number one show in 1985 on the Nielsen Ratings.
Falcon Crest ( 1981 to 1990 ) The series features the feuding of the wealthy Channing/Gioberti family in the Californian wine industry on the CBS network.
It was also a great decade for movies including
E.T. , Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan , Chariots of Fire, Gandhi , Nine to Five
Educating Rita , Octopussy , Star Wars, Staying Alive , Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Crocodile Dundee , Platoon, The Money Pit
And Some great groups and musicians
Lionel Richie, Van Halen, The Police, Debbie Harry, Whitney Houston, Madonna,
Culture Club, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, Adam and The Ants, Michael Jackson , Queen , David Bowie, U2, The Beach Boys
Taken from our 80's sections on The People History
1980's
A number of Videos we found on You Tube
US Stock Market Crash October 1987
Old Cellphone Commercial 1989
Stonehenge Concert 1984
Bruce Springsteen born in the usa
Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion - ABC News - 1/28/1986
Comparing IBM PC To Apple Macintosh 1980s
Sinclair Spectrum Commercial 1982
Larry Bird vs. Michael Jordan McDonalds commercial 1983
Band Aid Do they know it's Christmas 1984
The Advance In Computers In The 80's
Most of the computers for home use in the beginning were for the hobbyists, the very earliest home machines required you to put them together and often included the need for soldering. but as the cost of the electronics and microprocessors continued to drop so did the price of the computers and also slowly became easier to use and this in turn encouraged more to learn. One of the major driving forces in the purchase of these early computers were the games and as the computers increased in power the games improved. The number of magazines with pages and pages of basic code or machine code on the newsagents shelves
Read more about the History and Changes in Computing since the early days
Computers
A few Computer Innovations From 1980
Mattel Intellivision
Galaxian
Pac-Man
A few Computer Innovations From 1981
MSDOS
Donkey Kong
Frogger
Sinclair ZX81 UK Version
Timex Sinclair 1000 USA Version
IBM PC
Commodore Vic-20
BBC Micro
A few Computer Innovations From 1982
Atari 5200
IBM XT PC
Vectrex
Atari 5200
Colecovision
Pole Position
Commodore 64
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
TS2068 from Timex in USA.
A few Computer Innovations From 1983
Nintendo or NES
Mario
Compaq Computer Corporation PC Portable Clone
A few Computer Innovations From 1984
Mac OS
IBM AT PC
Amstrad CPC and PCW
A few Computer Innovations From 1985
Windows
Commander Keen
IBM PC
Windows
Nintendo NES
Atari ST
Commodore Amiga
Command & Conquer
Compaq IBM PC Clone
A few Computer Innovations From 1986
Atari 7800
Sega Master System
The Legend of Zelda
Intel 80386 microprocessor
A few Computer Innovations From 1987
Dragon Quest
Final Fantasy
Acorn Archimedes
Street Fighter
A few Computer Innovations From 1988
OS/2
Nintendo Game Boy Handheld
OS/2
A few Computer Innovations From 1989
Atari Lynx Handheld
Tetris
Sega Mega Drive Genesis
Nintendo Game Boy
Atari Lynx
SimCity
The World Recognises Environment Issues
In the 80's after many years of ignoring the impact on our environment ,the world also took more notice of the impact that we were having on our planet and more research was done on the effects on global warming through population growth, land clearing of rain forests for agriculture and logging, increased use of fossil fuels for power generation together with our love affair with the car for transport
Some Music Hits From the 80's
Coward Of The County Kenny Rogers 1980
Imagine John Lennon 1981
Ebony & Ivory Paul McCartney with Stevie Wonder 1982
Come On Eileen Dexy's Midnight Runners 1982
Eye Of The Tiger Survivor 1982
Billie Jean Michael Jackson 1983
Karma Chameleon Culture Club 1983
I Just Called To Say I Love You Stevie Wonder 1984
Do They Know It's Christmas? Band Aid 1984
We Are The World USA For Africa 1985
Dancing In The Street David Bowie & Mick Jagger 1985
Who's That Girl Madonna 1987
Desire U2 1988
One Moment In Time Whitney Houston 1988
A Groovy Kind Of Love Phil Collins 1988
Find News Stories and What Happened in These Other Years From the 80's
1980's(8)
1980(16) 1981(25) 1982(15) 1983(18) 1984(22) 1985(18) 1986(22) 1987(28) 1988(18) 1989(24)
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