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The Commodore Vic-20 was the precursor to the massively popular Commodore 64, and indeed you can see the family resemblance as the two machines look outwardly identical, with just a change in colour from cream for the Vic to beige-brown for the 64. The Vic-20 arrived on the scene in 1980 and took it’s name from one of it’s components, the Video Interface Chip, and was my first real computer (actually, that’s not strictly true, I did have a Sinclair ZX81 for a week, but we had so many problems getting it to load we took it back and changed it for a Vic-20).
The Vic-20 was one of the first computers to have colour graphics, in this case having access to a range of 16 colours, 8 of which could only be used as the background or border colours. It also had a proper keyboard, unlike many computers of the day, which made it a joy to type on. It’s tiny 3.5K of RAM could be expanded by adding a RAM pack in a slot at the back. The one I had was pretty nifty in that it had a switch on the back that let you boost the RAM by either 3K or 16K. This was necessary because the Vic-20 remapped its memory differently depending on how much RAM was added. This meant that a program written for an unexpanded machine wouldn’t run properly on a machine with an extra 16K!
Junior Senior are a Dutch band formed in 1998 comprising of Jesper Mortensen and Jeppe Laursen, who were both previously members of the band Ludo-X. So what are they doing being featured in a sight about the 1980’s, I hear you cry? Well, the reason is for the amazing pixellated video that accompanies one of their best known songs, Move Your Feet.
Monster In My Pocket was a series of small collectible plastic monsters first released by Matchbox in 1990, so it’s possible that if you were born during the 1980’s you will remember them. The reason I’m writing about them today is because I was reminded of them after seeing an advert on TV the other night for something incredibly similar - unfortunately I didn’t catch the name of these new ones, but it appears as though Monster In My Pockets are still available now as well.
It may be looked back on with distaste now, but at the time Joe Dolce’s hit Shaddup You Face stormed the charts around the world. The song was first released in Australia in 1980, where it went to number one and was the most successful Australian produced single in Australian music history for 26 years, selling over 350,000 copies. Total sales worldwide of the song including the 35 different foreign language versions (including the aboriginal dialect Indjubundji) are set at 4 million copies!
Masquerade was a book released in 1979 that sparked the hunt for the pictured jewelled hare. It was written and illustrated by artist Kit Williams, who decided that he wanted to do something a bit different, and came up with the idea of a treasure hunt that was to be solved by decoding clues in the lavishly painted images held within the pages of the book. The book also told a children’s story about the journey taken by Jack Hare to deliver a treasure from the Moon to her love the Sun. Upon reaching the Sun, Jack discovers he has lost the treasure, and it is therefore up to the reader to solve the clues to discover where it might be.
