Showing posts with label 1984. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1984. Show all posts

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Your Daily '80s: Beta or VHS?


How quaint, these electronic marvels of 1984 and our obsession with --
What do you call them . . . VCR machines?

In case you were wondering how it all turned out, Steve Lincoln's entire life was destroyed by a rogue electrical surge, home taping won, Jack Valenti is dead and Baba Wawa is wewwy wewwy old now and gabbing on The View.



MEANTIME, most of the mom-and-pop video stores no longer exist, and neither does Betamax. And if you want to buy some of these super-cool VCRs and videotapes . . . check out some weekend estate sales.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Your Daily '80s: Fight the last war, lose the next


Fall 1983.

Apple and its co-founder, Steve Jobs, have massed it forces for a frontal assault on the Evil Empire, otherwise known as IBM. The Macintosh attacked the Empire early in 1984, then fell back under a withering assault from . . . Microsoft and its new Windows operating system.

Jobs left Apple in 1985, victim of a botched coup d'etat against the CEO he hired, John Sculley. Apple was nearly broke by 1997 . . . at which point Jobs came back to lead a renaissance of the company, which began to dominate in products not Macintosh.

Now behemoth Apple girds for battle with behemoth Google as behemoth Microsoft continues being Microsoft but can't compete with Jobs in anything except the operating-system market. Right now, Apple looks unbeatable.

And it will until it is.


There's a moral in that -- not that anybody ever pays attention to it.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Your Daily '80s: Signing off


The Soviet national anthem, as broadcast in 1984 on state television.

Here we see a vision of a mighty empire and a proud people. Here we listen to a soaring hymn to the glories of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In little more than seven years -- on Dec. 26, 1991 -- the Soviet Union ceased to be.



OUR AMERICAN national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," as broadcast in 1984 at the close of another broadcast day for Buffalo, N.Y.'s public television station.

Here we see a vision of a mighty empire and a proud people. Here we listen to a soaring hymn to the glories of "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

In little more than. . . .

Sic transit gloria mundi. Thus passes the glory of the world.

Americans would do well to remember that.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Your Daily '80s: The computer for the rest of us


In 1983, this was personal computing:
C:\>dir

C:\>dir "C:\audio files"

C:\Audio files>dir "revolution 21"
THEN CAME the Macintosh in 1984. It had something called a "graphical user interface." It also had something called a "mouse."

You could click on an icon representing what you wanted or where you wanted to go.

It was a miracle.
Look!


TECHNOLOGY. What would we do without it?

That's a great question. Just don't ask Steve Jobs.

Twenty-six years after he made the world safe for personal computing, he'd rather that you just don't bug him.
Or Apple.

A college journalism student learned this the hard way when Apple media relations screwed her around, and she sent an E-mail to the top of the pecking order.
That would be Jobs.

After the Apple boss deigned to send her back a snotty-tot reply, a brief exchange ensued, and then Jobs got the last E-word:
"Please leave us alone."

In a market economy, that can be arranged. Sigh.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Your Daily '80s: Weird . . . even for Al


Mix "Weird Al" Yankovic and Japanese television . . . and you might -- might -- have the weirdest thing that happened in 1984.