Your Daily '80s: Goodbye to 405

When Great Britain introduced the world's first public television service in 1936, its "high definition" broadcasts were all-electronic at an amazing 405 lines of definition.

By the 1960s, though, a newer 625-line color system began to supplant the original British scheme of transmitting TV programs, and 405's days were numbered. Above, we see the end of 405-line transmissions as viewed on a 1938 receiver dusted off by the BBC for the occasion.

It's Jan. 3, 1985.


AND HERE, we see how it looked to folks with "newfangled" 625-line color sets.

Below, meantime, we see a news story on the oldest working TV set in Britain -- a 1936 model.


YOU THINK your brand-new high-def widescreen set will be "kickin' it old school" in 2083?

Your Daily '80s: Dance Fever!

One question about Lita Ford's appearance on this 1983 episode of Dance Fever.

If you're going to have Lita lip-sync into a dead wireless microphone, would it have been too much to plug a cable to nowhere into her electric guitar?


AND HERE'S a Dance Fever promo from 1985.

You know, new host Adrian Zmed was no Deney Terrio. That's not necessarily saying much about anything.

Now, if Dance Fever had had William Shatner (Zmed's old T.J. Hooker co-star) on the show to reprise his spoken-word version of "Rocket Man," that would have been somethin'.

Oh, look. I happen to have a copy.


IT'S NOT from the '80s (it's from the 1978 Science Fiction Awards show), but who cares? I'm not proud.

Your Daily '80s: Original Omaha punks

On this edition of Your Daily '80s, we see the evolution of some original Omaha punks -- R.A.F.

Remember, they're not getting older; they're getting balder.

First, we see R.A.F. from a cable-access program, Underground Omaha, in 1985. Think of it this way, what we have here is a time capsule of old-school punk, second generation.


Then, we see R.A.F. in concert in 1991.


And, finally, a couple of years ago at the My Generation Punk Reunion Show, held at The Waiting Room in Benson. I wonder what their teenage kids thought?

F***in' A. Rock 'n' roll!