Born in the ‘80s?
Memorabilia or souvenirs — you’re guaranteed to find something familiar in the list.
Have you ever gone back to your parent’s place and had a good clear out and stumbled across a few things that were a blast from the past? Here are a few that will jog your memory…
The new-but-old tech
Do you remember owning an Aiwa hi-fi system with the fancy feature of recording from one tape to another? They even allowed you to record your favourite music from Sunday night’s Chart Show, onto your used cassette tapes. Almost everyone has found themselves winding up a cassette tape reel with a pencil. Aiwa was the cool youth-focused brand within Sony, but discontinued in 2006 after a bout of bad business.
Then there were landlines when mobile phones weren’t a thing, it was so frustrating when your parents always used to pick up the connected phone downstairs when you were talking to your friends upstairs. They’d still continue to dial even when you shouted out “Mum/Dad I’m on the phone!” and the beeps wouldn’t stop until they actually put the phone up to their ears. The phone evolved from the rotary dial, to the dial pad, to the mobile all whilst we were growing up.
Saving your files onto floppy disks, and having to spread your coursework across a few files since the storage was never big enough. Also, do you remember the start-up floppy disk in case there was a problem booting up the machine via MS-DOS mode.
Encarta was a program that loaded onto Windows and was one of the first digital encyclopaedias which I believe Wikipedia evolved from.
TV
Anyone who owned a VCR can tell you how much time in their lives has been spent labelling and re-labelling VHS tapes as they were re-used to record your favourite tv show and movies.
Here’s a few shows and movies that will bring back a smile….
My friend was a huge World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWF) fan, with posters all over his bedroom walls of Hulk Hogan, Yokozuna, Brett Haart and The Rock “do you smell what the rock is cooking?!”
Games
The games were so much more exciting because of the lack of competition! For a start, there was the Commodore 64, where we had to connect a cassette player to the TV to play a game.
Then the Sega Mega Drive, which had Sonic the Hedgehog battling to get his rings in outer space — and Super Nintendo which had the Mario Brothers…Mario Cart and Mario All-Stars were classics.
Later on, it evolved to the Nintendo Gameboy with actual mobility with a game — you’d definitely be a popular person in school with a Gameboy!
Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were also the most popular games and at their own competition.
Almost every household had a deck of cards and games like Monopoly, Scrabble and Guess Who?
Then there were slinkys and yo-yos to keep our hands occupied. I found marbles which ignited so many memories of me playing with marbles and they kept me entertained for hours.
Then there was PacMan, Tetris and Solitaire on the Windows Vista operating system.
Fashion
Whilst dads would be bussin’ the bell-bottom trousers, big collared shirts and platform shoes, mums would have the poofy hairstyles.
The youth in the day would rock a neon coloured shell suit and think we’d be the coolest kid on the block, because we’d have been impressed by 30 seconds of MC Hammer dancing.
There were massive swoosh’s on peoples tops representing Nike and Fila trainers or “sneakers”. The more elite kids would have Ellesse attire or even splash out on Rockport boots.
Food
Vimto, MacDonalds was like going out for an actual treat, Sunny D was the best drink, Skips crisps, Custard Creams and Bourbons were popular in the UK. Microwave pizza became a widespread thing.
Do you remember the slurping on those sweets after school?
This has been a real throwback to my younger days and it’s funny how you associate so many memories with these items but its something I’ll cherish forever. Hoping it puts a smile on your face and you remember the good times!
