Right about now I have the opening song for the movie Revenge of the Nerds going through my head. Who did that song? Kraftwerk? What a fun movie, a classic that I hope no one in Hollywood tries to remake. It would be a shame to mess up this classic comedy. Hollywood has a way of ruining classic movies for future generations. The characters were great! Not just the nerds (can you name them all???), but even the Alpha Betas. We all saw this movie when we were about sixteen, so those of you who have kids about that age, I suggest you allow them to share this R-rated experience so you don’t rob them of the 80’s experience before some clown actually does do a remake and screws up the cool vibe we all had going back then.
In the 80’s being a geek, a spaz, a nerd suddenly became kind of cool. I wasn’t one of them, but the rest of us kind of knew the nerds would eventually run everything…and I mean everything! Seen the kid who started Facebook? Yep, a nerd. But let’s go back to the 80’s and pay homage to the nerds that shaped our culture.
Two of the greatest nerds on the planet, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple, pushed hard for computers to be something unique in the daily lives of individuals. Throughout the 1970’s computers were only purchased by corporations because they were so expensive. Jobs set out to change that and developed the PC (personal computer) for everyday use. We all know the story of the late Steve Jobs and his vision, and all the fun gadgets that we have today because of this super human nerd. All hail Steve Jobs!
But the PC became very popular and affordable in the 1980’s and with that computer technology came the ability for the rest of us lesser nerds to play games on these bulky chunks of equipment.
Before the X-Box, before Nintendo 64 and the Wii, there was the 80’s computer and we all loved the primitive thing! Remember Boulder Dash? I know some of us from the Geek Patrol will remember all too well.
But then something wonderful happened…we discovered the arcade at the mall. Sure they had been around for a while, but now we had some great new games to stand there and play as we pumped quarter after quarter and token after token into these monstrous machines of pleasurable distraction.
So instead of sitting at home in front of our Commodore 64’s, we had our parents just drop us off at the mall with absolutely no supervision for hours on end. Oh, and for you younger kids reading this…there were no cell phones to call home and find out when mom was picking us up. She would tell us a time to be waiting for her in front of the mall. And you know what? If she wasn’t there we just kept waiting until she showed up. And we didn’t stress out because we couldn’t stand off from the crowd texting and being anti-social because of those same nifty devices given to us by the nerds.
During the 1984 Super Bowl, Americans bought into the computer revolution big time when Apple unleashed one hell of an advertisement for the first Macintosh. The ad was seriously cool and you can find it on YouTube. It was a play on Orwell’s creepy novel 1984. If you haven’t read this book, use your computer and find a free copy online immediately. You don’t know what you’re missing.
By the end of the decade I would wager a safe bet to say that over half of the households in middle class America had a computer in their home. But that wasn’t all they had. As computer technology grew, so did the video gaming industry and companies began to sell other game systems beside the PC that exploded to unforeseen proportions by the end of 1989 and still serves a huge market for video games even to this day. The graphics just seemed to get better and better with arcade games at the mall and with video games for the home systems.
On a sad note, I really hated to see that home game systems put the arcades out of business. In the 80’s that was considered a cool hangout. No Child of the 80’s primarily went to the mall to shop. Shopping was something done after you hung out with your friends and your parents showed up with money to spend.
Who’s up for a top ten list? I am, so let’s do it. Right about now I want a time machine and a pocket full of quarters!
Top 10 Games of the 80’s
1. Pacman
Without a doubt this game is the all-time undisputed heavyweight champion of video games. This game went on to be the all time best selling video game…ever. You would have to live under a rock to not know about Pacman. It came with kooky music and neon colors. Go figure! Pacman was so popular that it even had its own cartoon and radio song.
2. Asteroids
Old joke alert!! Why are asteroids called asteroids and hemorrhoids called hemorrhoids? Shouldn’t that be the other way around?
When first looking at the screen it’s hard to understand why this game would be addictive. After all, it’s a triangle shooting odd empty shapes coming at it. But I’m sure the arcade owner got filthy rich off of this game, among countless others. Remember how funny it was to walk past someone playing a game when they were really into it. The way they danced around in front of the hulking video game machine made it look like they had to piss really bad but didn’t want to stop playing the game.
3. Space Invaders
Considering that this was one of the first games ever, it was still pretty bad ass. It doesn’t get more retro than this classic “shoot everything down” game. The graphics were lousy, but consider the point in the evolution of games and graphics. It was a staple in every arcade for good reason.
4. Frogger
Finally a game comes along that I was actually pretty good at. The whole purpose of the game is to jump your frog though obstacles on the water and to get his slimy green body through traffic. Hey, watch out for that crocodile!!
5. Donkey Kong
Another classic game that was in every arcade and eventually in every home when Nintendo first came out with their game system. This game showed up on the landscape in 1981 and featured the characters of Mario, Donkey Kong and Peach. The story : Donkey Kong has stolen Mario's girlfriend and taken her to the top of a steel structure. You move Mario over girders and up ladders, leap over tumbling barrels, dodge lethal fireballs and jump onto fast-moving elevators, trying to rescue Mario's girlfriend from Donkey Kong.
6. Pong
A classic game that actually bored me to tears. But I had friends who would play this game non-stop even if it meant pissing on themselves. Pong was the first coin-op arcade game and the first mainstream videogame that was available to almost everyone. The origins of Pong lie with an abstract tennis game created with an old oscilloscope and some vacuum tubes by Willy Higinbotham way back in 1958. What eventually became "Pong" was a pretty simple game with simple rules - hit the ball across the playing field and try your best to hit it past your opponents paddle on the other side
7. Pole Position
I loved this game. The only problem was that there was always someone playing the damn thing and someone else had quarters up on the dash to play ahead of me. The other problem was that the people playing the game were always twice my size and I couldn’t tell them to scram!
Pole Position was an arcade staple. It never taught any of us Children of the 80’s how to drive, but I think more than a few of us considered it a crash course before taking Drivers’ Ed. (Crash course, get it?? I crack me up.)
8. Centipede
If you don’t remember Centipede then you were likely a communist working for the Russians in the 80’s. I could get past the first three screens or so relatively intact. But it sped up way too much for me after that. I was toast. I didn’t play this game much because I figured it was a waste of quarters. I played Galaxa instead. At least I could get through a few bonus rounds before it was over.
9. Tron
Tron was a very popular game at my closest arcade. Even more so after the movie came out! What a hard game, too. Remember the I/O Tower, MCP Cone, Battle Tanks, and Light Cycles. I sucked at this game, big time.
10. Q-Bert
Seriously, all you had to do was stay on the cubes and change the color of the boxes. I failed miserably at this game. For some reason I just kept Q-Bert jumping off the cubes and falling into oblivion. Plus, you had to watch out for Slick, Ugg, Wrong-Way, and Coily. If they caught you it was your ass.
There were a million other great games in the 80’s. What were some of yours? Stop on by my blog and let everyone know.
Was there a social impact from computers and gaming?
The growth of computer technology and gaming in the 80’s had a huge impact on our society. One obvious area was in how families began to spend time together. As the American economy turned around in 1983 and 1984, families began to see changes in their own household economies. Also, more and more women entered the workforce leaving us Children of the 80’s with different options than kids in previous generations. More and more households added computers and game consols to their entertainment areas. Although board games were still popular in the 80’s, the growth of computer games and computers changed the way families spent time together.
I personally think that the social impact of computers and gaming technology are still evolving, and I’ll leave that philosophical discussion for another day. However, there were some obvious impacts that the technology had on the decade not just in terms of the sharing of information. It impacted and changed work hours and conditions, and the development of technology enhanced movie graphics as well as digital graphics for gaming.
From a perspective of cultural EXCESS, the rise of these technologies made the topics of movies, music and television a bit more “out there,” shall we say.
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