Child Of The 1980's

One of the most important things about riding a bicycle at night is to get yourself seen, and one of the best ways of doing that is to make sure you’ve got front and rear lights on your bike. Whilst most people opt for battery powered lights because they’re cheap and easy to install, there is another option – a dynamo powered system.

I used to ride my bicycle to school, so my parents got me a set of dynamo powered lights for my bike, as they figured in the long run it would be a cheaper option than buying batteries all the time, and it also meant you never had to worry about batteries failing you when you needed the lights most. They worked by having a little bottle shaped dynamo mounted on the back frame of your bike. The end of the dynamo rotated, and when active this rotating part was in contact with your back tyre, so when your wheels went round, the dynamo turned and electricity was generated.

Another advantage was that dynamo powered lights, once you got going at least, always ran at a good brightness level – whereas battery lights tended to only keep full brightness for a short while after fresh batteries had been inserted.

However, dynamo lights did have some drawbacks. One was that with the dynamo engaged you found it was actually harder to pedal your bicycle, which was surprising given how small the dynamo was, you wouldn’t think it would make much difference. Another problem was that where the dynamo rubbed against your back tyre it had a tendency to wear the rubber of the tyre away.

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The humble audio cassette tape, or Compact Cassette to give it it’s original name, may have been around since the early Sixties, but growing up in the Eighties it was a very important thing in my life, as it was not only an easy way of listening to and recording music, but more importantly to me personally, it was how I could save and load software for my home computer.

The compact cassette was an invention of electronics company Philips, who were also the innovators behind the compact disc. It worked by allowing music or data to be recorded by altering the magnetic properties of a piece of thin plastic tape coated with ferric oxide. This was of course nothing new, as reels of tape had been used in this manner for storage for decades prior, but as it’s name suggests, the compact cassette was a winner thanks to it’s relatively small size.

At the time of introduction vinyl was still the medium of choice for music storage, and indeed it arguably remained so for many years, but by the time the Eighties came around the cassette tape truly became a big player thanks to two technical innovations – the Sony Walkman, and the Home Computer.

Whilst they were certainly easier to transport and easier to use than vinyl, you still had to be careful with your cassettes. Winding them back and forth repeatedly could stretch the tape, causing the sound to warp as it was played back, and in extreme cases led to the dreaded tape snag, where you pulled the tape out of the player only to find the tape was still stuck in it somehow and it started to unravel from the plastic casing.

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Having written about school bags with football team names printed on them earlier this week, I think the obvious survey for this week is to see how many of you had a school bag with a footie team emblazoned on the side.

Just vote Yes or No below, and if you want to admit to which team you supported back then, why not add a comment. As I mentioned in the article, I had a West Ham bag, although it was more because I liked the colour of it than because that was my team of choice.

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When it comes to iconic items from the Eighties they don’t get more iconic than the humble Rubik’s Cube.

It may have caused many a gnashed tooth and uttered profanity, but there’s no denying that when someone wants a picture to illustrate the decade of the 1980s, they go straight for the cube. There are countless compilation albums and books featuring the cube on the cover, and a fair few websites too (hey, I’m as guilty as the rest of them!).

Whilst most of us would just fiddle and twiddle with the thing for hours, perhaps completing one side and then giving up, boffins around the world have been trying to work out what the maximum number of moves required to solve the cube is. This magic number, nick named a God Number, is a surprisingly low twenty – yep, a maximum of 20 moves is all that is required to solve any combination of the cube!

So how did they get to this number? Well, firstly the scientists took every single possible mixed up cube combination (a mere 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possibilities!) and dissected this up into groups of similar types which would all be solved in the same way. These groups were further wittled down by taking symmetry into account, which left just 2.21 billion groups to solve!

A computer program was then devised to solve each combination in the most optimum manner. On a reasonably powered desktop PC this took around 20-30 seconds to solve a single combination. Not bad, but 2.21 billion groups would still take around 35 years of non-stop processing to complete!

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This is a guest post by Michael at Jackpot – an online casino guide which offers a wide range of reviews and information about online gambling.

When the 1980s are mentioned, many images and stereotypes are immediately conjured. From Rubik’s Cubes to the A-Team, this was a decade that had many defining features. A development that was certainly at the forefront of many people’s lives during this era was the emergence of video games.

The early 1980s is often described as the ‘golden age of video arcade games’, and for good reason. This was a time period in which Super Mario Brothers, Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were created, so how could it not be noted as a period of considerable excitement within this industry?

Some games of the 80s are still very much in favour today, with Super Mario Bros. being the best selling video game of all time and Google even changing its homepage logo to a fully playable version of Pac-Man to commemorate the games 30th anniversary. 80s video game fever has become so apparent that classic games have even made their way in to cutting edge online casinos.

A prime example of this is the Street Fighter II and Street Fighter IV slots that can be found at the likes of Intercasino. These slots feature many characters from the games including Ryu, Ken and Sagat and even include enthralling bonus rounds which consist of choosing fighters and then helping them through fights in an attempt to win you big money.

As a result of the transformation of the Street Fighter games in to slot games, they are currently experiencing a resurgence in popularity. A new version of the game, entitled ‘Super Street Fighter IV’, was released in early 2010 as well as a short film called ‘Street Fighter: Legacy’ that starred characters from the game series.

Street Fighter is not the only video game to appear in online casinos. Inspiration for slot machines coming from all sorts of video games, ranging from Bejewelled to more recent games such as Hitman and Call of Duty 4. There are even casino games available that are designed to rekindle some of the enjoyment that was created during the 1980s. The iconic film series ‘Rocky’ has also provided the inspiration for an online slot machine in addition to the plethora of games based on comic book characters including Superman, The Punisher and Daredevil to name just a few.

More and more themed slots such as these are becoming available on a daily basis. This means that there is now so much choice within online casinos that each and every player is bound to find a game that they can enjoy.

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One of the most familiar names in kitchen gadgetry, SodaStream, is set to return this summer. Actually, I don’t think it really ever went away, but with a new TV advert just appearing on our screens the name is set to become a household name once again.

It’s been around 20 years since SodaStream last advertised their range of fizzy drinks makers on television, and no expense has been spared on the new ad. Indeed it has an almost movie feel to it, starting with images of sad and dejected people whilst a voice over talks rather ambiguously about lost loves and things of that ilk.

The advert then changes to shots of people being happy because their love is returning, and it is revealed that this love is none other than the good old SodaStream machine!

That said, as you can see in the image the brand new SodaStream model looks rather more space age than the original yellow and white plastic affair that I remember having in our family kitchen.

The new machines certainly look the business, and one aspect they are being sold under is that they are greener than buying bottles of fizzy pop. After all, you just use tap water to make the drink and the gas cylinder is returnable when it has expired.

The thing that pleases me most though is that SodaStream have wisely decided to retain their old slogan in the new advert, so get ready to “get busy with the fizzy” once more!

Search for SodaStream items on Amazon.co.uk

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I’m sure these were around in the eighties, but if not they were certainly an early nineties gimmick. The Whistling Key Finder was supposed to be the answer to the prayers of anyone who was constantly losing their keys, and I guess to a certain extent it did do the job.

The Whistling Key Finder was a little plastic device with a key ring attachment. You put all your important keys on it, so that when you lost them all you had to do was whistle, and the little device would merrily beep away making it a bit easier for you to track down where in the house they could be.

I remember we got one for my Dad, just because they were all the rage at the time and because my sister and I wanted to play with it. My Dad was actually pretty good at remembering where his keys were, until the key finder gizmo came along and we kept playing hide and seek with them that is.

The device only suffered two problems. One was that the batteries tended to run out quite quickly (ours was a cheapo one off the market) and the other was that if the keys were buried under something (e.g. under a cushion on the sofa) the beeping sound was actually not all that easy to hear.

These little devices are still available today if you look hard enough, and they are getting more feature laden too. The simpler ones now often have flashing lights as well as the beeping, and if you are really bad at losing your keys then there are even ones that have GPS functionality!

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People have always enjoyed customising their cars with humourous tat. Nodding dogs, stickers showing places you’ve been to or stating that your other car is a Porsche and even suction cupped Garfield toys have all been popular for periods of time, but one such adornment that is still very popular in the UK is the Baby On Board sign.

The Baby On Board sign is a diamond of usually yellow plastic with a suction cup in one corner for fixing it to a car window. Printed in the centre of the square in big black letters is the phrase “Baby On Board”. The signs started appearing in the mid eighties, and they were initially introduced as a safety measure, rather than to annoy other drivers with you bragging about your kids.

The idea was that by displaying such a sign in the car, if you were to have an accident then the emergency services could be extra vigilant about looking for a young child who may have fallen into a foot well in the car, for example. The only trouble with this was that you were obviously supposed to remove the sign when not travelling with an infant, because that could cause delays whilst fire or ambulance workers searched for a non existant child.

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