The '80's and antiquated technology
 

EDIT: This thread is split off from this thread here.

Being such a fan of the 80's, you probably started getting this feeling by the time you were about ten years old. :(

Nobody is really a fan of the 80's if they can type on an internet forum. Their pre-90's wiring and half assed oscillation feature don't even come close to modern day blowing technology.

No. I was never really 'up to the minute' as far as trends. When I was 10 I had a rat tail. In the late 90s I was in jeans and nikes with a Members Only jacket. Seemed fine at the time. I have a startling amount of memories of things from when I was very young... plus growing up listening to my parents' vinyl...

I'm not sure what to make of this exactly... but true. I just love primitive things. They're groundbreaking, unlike the things that build upon them.

VHS or Beta?

The 80s suck because ThatcherReagan.

You give me too much credit. I was honestly just making a fan joke.

However, I appreciate the dilapidated carcasses of our ancient electronic conveniences like no other. I am truly inspired by the sun stained, cigarette smoke blotched radio boxes that came under my nose when I had to fix them at the Saint Vincent De Paul. There's a beauty and a nostalgia to old junk for me that I can't help but assume is why I find it hard to take in an entire scrapyard in one glace; there's so much more.

Still can't tell if you're being facetious but in all honesty I find all that old junk fascinating. Sad and interesting all at once.

One of the most endearing qualities to old technology is that it just refuses to quit on ya.
I had a TV made no later than the 70s that still works like a charm to this very day.

I get a kind of "Hi I'm a mac, hi I'm a PC vibe" from it. Two guys standing next to each other. One is some young, metrosexual hipster douche and the other is some hardworking older guy with laugh lines and calloused hands. Hipster douche wants him to quit, but that older guy's still got too much life in him. He's not content to retire at 40 and move into a loft, no sir.

I'm being dead honest. Without sounding too (god damn) melodramatic, there's an emotional connection I have to building, taking apart and fixing things. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's anthropomorphizing inanimate objects so much as appreciating that there's a history to them, and I often escaped the emotional and physical abuse dished out by my dad by tucking myself into a corner of my room and going apeshit bonkers with my K'Nex and Lego, churning out some really creative stuff, modesty be damned. Sometimes (at the SVDP) it felt like I was being disrespectful by just chucking stuff that couldn't be fixed or harvested for parts and copper into the scrap bin, but then again, the people did donate it for a reason.

This will seperate the Men from the Boys, even if you don't like the 80s.

It's primitive, it's improvisation, it... is what it is.



That's cool. That's very cool. Fixing stuff is based all on improvisation. :)

I'm the same way, man. I get emotionally attached to flotsam and it can be downright heartbreaking when it comes time to toss it out. On at least one occasion I've caught myself talking to the object in question, like giving it a fucking eulogy. I project a certain human quality onto these items to the point where some of the things I own are more like pets than appliances.
Fucking weird I know. I remember when I was a kid, I fucking cried when the family car stopped working and had to be sold.

Somebody should take that video, download it, rename it 'beauty' and reupload it.

Because that's what it is.

We had an old green Pontiac that we called Henry that we had to get scrapped. Gorgeous old car, in hindsight. Shame about the then-unaffordable repairs that had to be done to it to get the sulfur odor out.

It's all The Brave Little Toaster's fault. Now I think inanimate pieces of hardware have souls.

Maybe.

Souls, definitely NOT. I think a lot of things we create which reflect us, are just very very primitive forms of life. We don't deserve the capacity to manufacture artificial life when look at what we do with it.

Human life even.

The 80's ruined our economy, all those over-night millionaires and Starbucks, it disposed of America's "work hard and save" mentality and replaced it with "duhr put it on your dinner's club card now pay later!!!" fucking yuppies all because they couldn't just wait to have things. Inflation.

Yeah, but the appliances, man! The appliances!

Oh true, they're indestructible for real

Most of the "appliances" were "basic" in the 80's.

They were (and are) so hardy, though. Some of the grossest, muckiest stuff I ever dealt with was dug out of vintage 70's and 80's electronics paraphernalia, and they still worked. Nowadays one in one and a half Shopping Channel appliances are either broken, poorly wired, or just plain too fragile. You could shatter modern bullshit steam mops with a good old Kirby Vacuum cleaner.

Preach the gospel.
Simplicity is best anyway. With every additional function we add to an appliance, the crappier it gets at doing its primary function.
Things were once built to last, but somewhere along the way someone realized its better for business if shit is built to have a lifespan just slightly longer than that of it's warranty so that consumers are constantly returning to buy replacements.

The local thrift store is a great place to buy appliances. So many people have this "out with the old, in with the new" attitude, and I reap the benefits of their ignorance. Have fun shelling out five grand on one of those streamlined, platinum-plated washing machines that also doubles a turkey fryer/time machine. I'm going to spend five bucks on a toaster oven from the 70's that will last me until doomsday. My toast has never tasted better.

But I'm not gunna play "holier than thou". I'm a shallow piece of shit too, and I always catch myself stopping and staring at the incredible sexiness of modern electronics every now and again. Luckily for me, I'm cheap as hell.

I didn't pop into the world into the early 90s but I'm still a fan of 80s tech, gotta love those early games and things like tape players. Everything being so simple, practically nothing ever broke, that's why the PS1 (I know 90s) has yet to break where as my friends XBOX 360 broke after 7 months.

Of course soaring fuel prices and absurd taxation on the govts part haven't helped any but the real problem with shit today is not that the technology is "over-conmplicated" it's that it's manufactored poorly in China to cut costs and that's because the consumers of America have spoken, they want it cheap and they want it "RiGht NEOOWWW!" so we're getting what we asked for.

Here's two pieces of 80's tech I own that are not only still working but surpass what's on the market today...



Best headphones you'll ever own I promise, I got them on eBay for $50!!! There's plenty available on there so don't buy the garbage Best Buy carries ever again. They're from '82 btw and unlike the Sonys I bought last year I can hear out of both sides! I use them for everything: CDs, video-games, etc



Technics CD player from '87, mostly metal, kicks the shit out of any other CD player I've ever owned. Oh and btw it's MADE IN JAPAN and that's why it still works and always will better than ANYTHING China or India can ever build.

What about the old old old tamagotchis anyone have one? I think I still have my one

EDIT: My bad, they came out in 1996 not 1986 sorry

Meh; I was born just after the 80s, but I must say...the 80s had good music; particularly metal music.

The 80s had all the best metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Metallica, Megadeth as well as many other awesome bands. :)

Thats my personal highlight of the 80s. :D

Funny thing is that Iron Maiden released their best album in the year 2000.

Meh; I think thats a matter of opinion, personally...I consider their self-titled debut and sophomore Killers their best albums which were both released in the 80s.

I much prefer the HDTVs of today to the TVs of the 80's

Then get out of this thread and go enjoy the slightly better picture quality you payed the extra 500+ for. :dodgy:

Slighty?

The difference between an 80s tv and a HD tv is the difference between streaming anime online or downloading the blu-ray.

I know which I'd do. Slightly my ass.

An anime comparison.
You don't disappoint, do you?

I have a TV purchased in 1988 (give or take a year). To this day it works like a charm. Not a room away is an HDTV, my dad's. The difference in picture quality is slight, and there's nothing wrong with my vision either. HDTV makes things sharper, admittedly, but the difference in overall quality isn't steep enough for me to spend the extra money. Maybe I just got lucky and got a really nice TV.