80s toy stories

The 1980s were the golden years of toys.

Forget what your baby boomer parents told you about the good old days of toys being sometime in the 50s and 60s. Baby boomers have always exaggerated the magic appeal of their childhood. Let’s face it, how exciting can yo-yo’s, hula-hoops and sparking tin robots be? I mean, really, it’s a no-brainer if you have the choice between playing Donkey Kong, or Snoopy Tennis on your new Game & Watch, or dragging along a tin can on a string.

No, the real halcyon days of toydom were undoubtedly the 80s. Which is why so many of the toys of that fabulous era are being relaunched for a new generation of kids to enjoy today: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, My Little Pony, Star Wars figures, even GI Joe…all back on the shelves of a Kmart store nearby.

And this week it was announced that the very groovy Voltron: Defender of the Universe will be returning this year as a new toy line from Mattel.

What’s the reason for this 80s toy renaissance? Firstly, there’s the obvious commercial tie-ins with the blockbuster 80s films. Movie franchises make more money from the action figures than the actual cinema release. Secondly, the folks at the creative helm making these films and designing the toys are drawn largely from Generation X, no doubt nostalgic for their misspent 80’s youth. They got the power, and they’re wielding it, baby.

My biggest regret in life is that I was born a decade too early. For me the 1980s were the nightclub years, hanging out in Baker Street Gosford, dancing to Spandau Ballet and Tears for Fears. I was much too old to be interested in Ninja Turtles or Transformers. And being a suburban new romantic male with a penchant for Adam and the Ants, My Little Pony just wasn’t on the radar.

But I do remember my parents buying me a Rubik’s Cube in the Christmas of 1980. I promised myself I would solve it by Boxing Day. After that deadline past, I gave myself until New Year’s Eve. Not a chance. I could have given myself until New Year’s Eve 2050 and been no closer.

Part of the problem was the fact that I attacked the cube with no real mathematical system in mind, just a series of completely random twists and turns. And seeing as there are exactly 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 permutations, my chances of solving the puzzle strictly by chance and a whole lot of hope, would have taken me the best part of the age of the universe, or at least until the National Party were relevant again.

To make matters worse, my smart-arse cousin who studied 3-unit mathematics at high school and wore burgundy fair isle sweaters even in the summer, arrived on Christmas afternoon and made a bee line straight for my Rubik’s Cube.
“Can I have a go?” he asked.
I shrugged and handed it to him. “It’s impossible.”
Two minutes later he handed it back, completed. “That was easy.”

I was seething. My parents were completely embarrassed. They thought they’d nurtured a genius. Now they knew the truth, that I had the brain of a pantry moth.

I grew to hate the cube. The cube was the enemy, a multi-coloured mocker, chiding me for my lack of functioning grey matter. So, to save face I did what every other idiot schoolboy did. I bloody-well cheated. With the aid of screwdriver, the cube was surprisingly easy to prise apart and reassemble, with all the coloured faces lined up as that Hungarian sadist – Mr Erno Rubik – intended.

To solve the cube in this manner might not have been in the spirit of the challenge, but it demonstrated some lateral thinking, so maybe I wasn’t so dumb after all? My parents were certainly happy when I presented them with the finished cube.
“I don’t know where he gets his brains,” Dad said to Mum, swelling with pride.

Why Erno Rubik would create such a demonic puzzle in the first place is anybody’s guess. Maybe he’d had a bad argument with his missus? Or maybe, just maybe he just liked to make people feel more dim witted than a line dancer? Whatever the reason, he was onto a winner. By January 2009, some 350 million cubes have sold worldwide, making it one of the world’s best selling toys and accounting for a hell of a lot of psychotherapy.

This year the cube celebrates its 30th anniversary. You can buy special glitzy editions at your local toy store. And if you still need convincing that the 80s are back, consider that the world record average solve for the puzzle – 9.21 seconds – was set this year at the Melbourne Open (maybe the tennis was boring that day?). And only this March, 134 schoolboys from an English grammar school broke the Guinness World record for the most people solving a Rubik’s cube at once in 12 minutes.

But enough about the damn cube. Let it go people.

Generation X will have fonder memories of toys that don’t do your head in, such as the aforementioned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1988) and Transformers (1984). Walk into any toy shop in 2010 and it’s like stepping into a time warp with entire aisles given over to the Turtles and Transformers. Heck, if Bananarama were playing over the PA, and the checkout girls were wearing bubble skirts, the illusion would be complete.

Transformers are still hugely popular, following the release of Transformers the movie in 2007, followed by a sequel (Revenge of the Fallen) in 2009 and the third of the trilogy slated for July 2011. The Transformers feature a constant struggle between good and evil, in the form of the heroic Autobots versus the rather nasty Decepticons. Generation 1 (1984 to 1994) were the original Transformers, seeded from a 1980 Japanese toy-line and re-branded by Hasbro with astounding success. The main character of the Transformers is Optimus Prime from the planet Cybertron. After his ship crash lands on Earth he stays unconscious for millions of years before woken by an earthquake in 1984 with the ability to turn into a bloody big truck. (And to think, Tom Cruise, believes this kind of stuff).

“I still remember going into the toy shop in Gosford to buy Transformers with my pocket money,” says Damo, 37, a personal trainer from Umina. “I still have most of them. It was always my dream to be able to morph into a motorcycle.”

“I saved for weeks for an Optimus Prime,” says Scott, a 36-year old accountant from Hornsby. “When I got him home I was afraid to play with him in case he broke. He’s still in the original box. I suppose he might be worth some money.”

While original, Generation 1 Transformers do sell regularly on the internet (a mint condition, but not boxed, Optimus Prime is currently on Ebay for $100), the real money is being asked for a lesser known mid-80s toy called Omnibot, manufactured by Japanese toymaker, Tomy.

The Omnibot was, for its time, a pretty sophisticated little robot, that could be programmed to move around the house and bring you a drink (hopefully a martini). The more advanced version, the Omnibot 2000, had a tray on which to carry things.

Omnibots are selling on Ebay for up to $3,000, with 80s collectors eager to have one in their living room to impress their gullible guests. Jason, a web producer, 44, from Darlinghurst is the proud owner of three Omnibots. He purchased them on Ebay 8 years ago for around $100 each.
“I don’t remember them as a kid,” Jason says. “I happened to see one used as a prop in a designer store several years ago and fell in love with it.” Nowadays Jason’s Omnibots are displayed in his apartment, gathering dust, except for the one that he loaned to the Powerhouse Museum, for ‘The 80s Are Back’ exhibition. “I’m rather attached to them as objects,” he says. “I did set one up once for my wife’s grandmother when she visited us one Christmas. I programmed him so it would come into the room and say hello to her. She thought it was amazing. She believed she’s stepped into the future.”

Because the 80s are back, Tomy (now Takara-Tomy) in 2008 released a new version of the Omnibot, called the i-SOBOT. Sure it’s clever and can probably fill out your tax returns and light your cigars, but it doesn’t look near as funky as the original.

Also on the shelves this year is My Little Pony, first introduced in 1983 and relaunched globally in 2003. The Ponys’ boast colourful bodies and manes and are identified by the symbols found on their haunches, with names like Minty, and Cheerilee. Amy, 31, a psychology student from the Central Coast had a My Little Pony named Bowtie.

“She had a pink mane and turquoise body with pink bow ties on the rump,” Amy recalls. “I’d sit in my room for hours, just combing her mane with her little plastic brush, or pretending to gallop her around on the carpet. I became horse obsessed and got a real one.”

Another famous pony – well, more a flying horse actually – was Starlite, the equine friend of Rainbow Brite, a billion dollar character franchise created in 1983 by (believe it or not) Hallmark Cards.

“Rainbow Brite was totally 80s,” says Kate, 33, a graphic designer from Brisbane. “She had these crazy stripey leg warmers and a shiny metallic dress and big orange hair. She was a space cadet like Cindi Lauper. She was obviously on drugs.”

Kate, like most of her friends, also owned one of the decade’s most popular toys; a Cabbage Patch Kid.

Many years ago, a young boy named Xavier happened upon an enchanted Cabbage Patch, where he found very special Little People who called themselves Cabbage Patch Kids. To help fulfill the Cabbage Patch Kids’ dream of having families with whom to share their love, Xavier set about building a special place known as BabyLand General, where the Kids remain until each is chosen for adoption. Won’t you adopt a Cabbage Patch Kid and fill a little heart with love? So reads the blurb on the back of the box in which your Cabbage Patch Kid arrived.

Unless you were a kid in the 80s you could never understand the extent of the hype around these simple little dolls with their pudding-shaped vinyl heads. Yes they were cute. And yes, they came with their own adoption papers (featuring the doll’s name, birth date and adoption oath) but it hardly justified the sheer frenzy surrounding them.

Produced by Coleco from 1982-1989, their appearance in department stores sparked riots, as parents scrambled over the top of each other, calling each other bitches and bastards, to grab one for their children. Or indeed for themselves, as my mother did in 1984. My mother sadly has gone, but the doll remains, watching me from the shelf in my writing studio every day.

Many urban legends grew up around Cabbage Patch Kids, the most insidious being that if you sent your doll back for repairs, it was issued with a death certificate.

The real appeal of Cabbage Patch Kids was that each one was an individual, with it’s own distinctive combination of hair-colour and style, clothing, face and name.

“My Kid’s name was Carrie-Anne Leonora. I loved her, to me she was real,” Kate says. “You could write in and change your Kid’s name, but it wasn’t considered a very thing to do.”

“I took Carrie-Anne everywhere. We’d go out to dinner with my parents to this crap Chinese restaurant in an old service station and I’d always ask for a high chair for her, so she could sit beside me and eat. She’s still at Mum and Dad’s house. I promised her I’d never stop looking after her, but I was onto the next thing in a couple of months.”

That next thing was most likely Strawberry Shortcake, another character born on an American greeting card, back in the late 70s. Strawberry Shortcake herself was a knee high ‘ranga’, with her ginger hair smelling permantly of strawberries. Her friends were similarly fruity, with names like Orange Blossom and Lemon Meringue. They had sickly scents to match. The Strawberry Shortcake empire was relaunched just last year, with the release of a new Strawberry Shortcake movie, The Skies the Limit.

Which brings us to Star Wars. While not the definitive 80s toy – seeing as the original movie was released in 1977 – it sure did sell a lot of action figures (around 300 million) for Kenner with The Empire Strikes Back (May 1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983).

Now under the Hasbro label, Star Wars continues to sell, as a new generation of kids are discovering the pleasure to be had from pretending to be Jedi Knights and wielding plastic light-sabres.

May the force be with you.

Jacques Capdor – Digital Freakazoid

Digital Freakazoid was the street name of Jacques Capdor, an old-school break (street) dancer, from Blacktown, Sydney. Capdor was initially exposed to Hip Hop culture in the early 1980s while still at school and it made a big impact upon him. He became heavily involved in breaking, forming his crew the Break Lords in 1984. Capdor remembers the 1980s fondly and relates some of his early experiences breaking in Blacktown…

I started breaking back in 1982 at the age of 11, with my cousin Eric Capdor aka Apache. We were always in high demand at family weddings and parties. Eric always had this one move that he loved doing where he would pretend to pull out his eye, swallow it (using his popping, locking and wave techniques) then do the motion of swallowing incorporating a body wave, he would than bring it back up using the same method, coughing it up into his hand. He then would pretend to throw his eye at me. I would then mimic the same moves, cough it up and throw back his eye at him where he would pretend to put it back into his eye socket. All the while he had one eye shut to give the impression that he had removed his eye.

I didn’t become part of my crew the Break Lords until 1984. The Break Lords were a trio hailing from Sydney’s west side (Blacktown); the crew was Marc Nemorin, aka Machine, Abilio Pascoa, aka Speedy and I.

We came together as a trio by accident in 1984 at school. The school was organizing a gala day which showcased our school’s talent, so being the only known breakers in the same year; we decided to come together as the Break Lords. I can remember half an hour before going on stage, that I hadn’t laid the cardboard, and the guys were relying on me. So I bolted into Blacktown Franklins, gathered up boxes, broke them up, put them in my armpits, struggled back, losing my kung fu shoes along the way, and having to regather. Marc and Abilio’s jaw dropped to the ground, when they saw the cardboard I’d gathered. They were the crappiest and smallest boxes and were soggy in some parts. I only had less then five minutes to tape them all up; I didn’t even have time to remove the staples, and came off second best. My clothes had small rips, I had a few scratches, and I can remember looking at the staples and seeing tufts of hair stuck in it.

In 1982 breaking was only new to Australia; it was Malcolm McLaren’s ‘Buffalo Girls’ that left an impression on me and the youth of Australia, we were all attempting the dance moves.

I can remember laying my parents’ garage with cardboard and practicing day and night bruises and all. The garage ended up like my own dance studio, I had kids in the street rushing over straight after school just so I could give them lessons, they were all dressed like they’d just walked out of Olivia’s ‘Let’s get physical’ music clip. These kids would tell me they needed lessons badly as a family member was getting married or having a birthday and their parents wanted them to impress and put on a show. The only time I’d get a rest was when the milk man came by; we’d all rush over and pick up our favourite beverage, chocolate Moove for only twenty cents.

We would hang out break dancing on footpaths, in parks, basketball courts, outdoor parties, car parks, police boys clubs, blue light discos, even notable parts of Sydney like Circular Quay was a popular hangout for breakers. During the 80s it was common to see breakers outside or in shopping malls with a sheet of cardboard and a ghetto blaster performing for an audience.

We’d hang out at Franklins, waiting for cardboard boxes to come down the caged shutes, we’d rush off when we had enough, pull them apart, tape them up and before long we’d have our dance floor. Scoring industrial cardboard was a big bonus; the sheets were thicker and in bigger pieces and lasted longer, as you can imagine recycling techniques have changed since the early 80s. Some kids would show off and roll out a piece of lino.

We would battle and challenge against each other showcasing our dance moves. The winning side was determined by the breaker who could out perform each other by displaying a set of more complicated and innovative moves.

Marc aka Machine reminded me of the days when we use to record the music off the radio. All prepared with the finger on the record button, only to have his Mum half way through the recording come in and say dinner was ready. We’d be out there breaking away and have his Mum’s recorded voice on the tape which was way uncool but funny at the same time.

In the 80s breaking got a lot of kids into trouble from their parents. I can remember some kids that smoked, would forget to empty their pockets of one or two cigarettes and their lighter. Their break moves would send it all flying out onto the dance floor, in front of parents and family members. In disgust the parents would drag them away by the ears, how embarrassing.

We wore nylon Adidas and Puma tracksuits, double breasted shirts and baggies with kung fu shoes, or jeans with hooded jackets. We wore the same outfits to show uniformity. Our sneakers had thick laces. Bigger crews with the same matching outfits were perceived as a threat to other breakers by their strength in numbers.

Our heroes at the time were the Rock Steady Crew; they pretty much took break dancing around the world. On the 29/07/1984 Countdown featured the Beat Street grand final with special guest the Rock Steady Crew. The finalists were Electric Troopers from Queensland, Street Patrol from NSW:

Electro Shock from Tasmania:

Shane Mathews from Northern Territory:

Rap City Connection from South Australia and Energy Transfer from Victoria, who were voted the winners:

The Rock Steady Crew performed live and announced they were touring, to the excitement of breakdancers across Australia.

Like Countdown, other television programs from the 80s which showcased local breakers as well as other elements of Hip Hop culture were: Sounds, Young Talent Time, Hey Hey it’s Saturday and Star Search. Break dancing in the early 80s got a lot of media exposure through movies and documentaries such as Wild Style, Beat Street, Krush Groove, Breakin’, and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. These films helped to expand the appeal of Hip Hop culture in Australia.

The popularity of the break dancing scene eventually faded in the mid 80s, it went pretty much underground until it made a comeback, in 1997. Break dancing is much alive in Australia again, but there are some considerable differences to that of breakers of the 80s. Nowadays you won’t find breakers out there on the streets, breaking in their tracky dacks with a ghetto and a piece of cardboard. These days we have a lot more breakdance comps, events and festivals that showcase break dancing, not to mention workshops and dance schools adopting Hip Hop due to its popularity.

A lot of critics of Hip Hop have said that non-Anglo Australians were more attracted to the Hip Hop culture because of its lyrical content of racial opposition such as in African American Hip Hop. I don’t think we were attracted to Hip Hop because of race. Sure there were issues with race, I can’t remember how many times I was called a wog, but that didn’t make me turn to Hip Hop, I just wanted to dance and belong. Non Anglo youth embraced Hip Hop better than the Anglo youth of Australia, who were pretty much already part of the Rock scene. Hip Hop appealed to us more because of its fusion of funk, disco, soul, jazz and R&B which had been exposed to us one way or another through our parents’ cultural music. On a typical Saturday night the Aussies would be at their local pubs while the Wogs would be lined up outside clubs like the Apia Club, Vibrations, Mystics and Flashez to name a few.

Hip Hop from the early 80s was all about everyday, family, having a good time and being a ladies’ man.
There may have been elements of social issues, like ‘The Message’ from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five; a classic song which spoke about surviving day by day in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. But Sydney’s west was no way like the ghettos in America.

In the early 80s Hip Hop was pretty much an underground culture, a lot of the music we listened to was American Hip Hop, the likes of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the Sugar Hill Gang, Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force and Run D.M.C.
Other then American Hip Hop, one notable Australian artist at the time that we listened to was Sound Unlimited who originated from the western Sydney suburb of Burwood in 1983. Sound Unlimited, (previously called Westside Posse, then Sound Unlimited Posse) became the first Australian hip hop act signed to a major label.

They have contributed to the Australian Hip Hop scene supporting several other bands. The group supported acts such as New Kids on the Block, Public Enemy and De La Soul during their Australian tours.

Hip Hop in the day, was very hard to get a hold of, only a few DJs, radio stations and music stores stocked imports. We relied on music stores like Central Station Records, to keep us up to date with the latest imports. Community radio stations like 2RDJ FM, 2SER and 2RRR, and youth network Triple J kept us up to date with the Hip Hop scene.

One thing I learned from the 80s was a lesson in recouping from “Mr T” through break dancing. If I ever fell to the ground rather then get up and brush myself off, I would save myself the embarrassment and break out into some dance moves like crazy legs or the caterpillar. It worked a charm always; I’d always get my high fives afterward, instead of snickering of embarrassing laughter from bystanders, as they say, in case of an emergency Break Dance!

I’m glad to have been part of the 80s, for me I feel it was the best decade of music and fashion. This is a message to the 80s come back, all is forgiven.

80s Mod Revival Weekend photos

Thanks to everyone who came along to the 80s Mod Revival weekend! Our staff photographers Marinco Kojdanovski and Sotha Bourn documented the weekend, with pictures of the bands, scooters, fashion shows and, maybe you!

Want to see more? Check out our videos from the weekend in the voxpops section.

80s handheld game design

The evolution of gaming in the 80s is particularly fascinating, not only for the brisk pace at which new technology was developed but the fact that it all seemed to happen simultaneously. Dozens of enterprises and studios rose and fell over the years, and certain platforms and types of games came along only to quickly go out of fashion but by the end of the decade you could still play in the arcade, in the lounge-room, on the computer, and while in transit or on the toilet with your phenomenal new handheld device.

In the interest of complete historical accuracy, handheld gaming officially began around 1977 when Mattel introduced Auto Race, a game in only the most generous sense of the word, and virtually impossible to find in working condition today. Essentially you could control a bright blip on a tiny screen that was meant to represent a race car, and your goal was to race against the computer in the shortest time possible. To win, your time had to run under 99 seconds, as this was as high as the two-digit game timer display could go.

A few years later board-game giant Milton Bradley released the very first handheld console with interchangeable cartridges – the Microvision. Jay Smith’s design was a massive leap forward from Auto Race, and despite the fact that it made an appearance in ‘Friday the 13th Part 2′, technical issues and lack of software support meant that it was taken off the market only a short time later in 1981. The Microvision design effectively looked like a miniature arcade machine, and featured a mini joystick at the base of the device for game control.

In 1980, Nintendo began releasing its ‘Game & Watch’ series of handhelds. Created by designer Gunpei Yokoi, each device featured a single game on a dual LCD screen and a clock with an alarm – hence the name “game” and “watch”. Yokoi’s design featured a cross shaped directional pad (D-pad) for controlling characters within the game, a feature that would become standard on gaming consoles across the industry. Despite the limitations of the device, the series proved to be immensely popular, and Yokoi eventually began work on a followup device that, like Milton Bradley’s Microvision, would feature interchange game cartridges. After years of development, that device was released in 1989 under the name Game Boy.

The success of the Game Boy was unprecedented. In the U.S it sold a million units within weeks of its release, and to date over 118 million Game Boy products have been sold worldwide. Initially bundled with the puzzle game Tetris, hundreds of titles were released for the Game Boy, including many of the classic Nintendo franchises like Super Mario Brothers.

The design featured many similarities to Yokoi’s Game & Watch, including the D-pad, rounded B & A action buttons (similar to the G&W jump/start button) and select and start buttons, which were essentially elongated versions of the G&W Game A, B and time buttons. Overall, the Game Boy’s design was typically stylish and minimal, while also being slightly bubbly and cartoon-like. The design also featured a trademark rounded right corner, which housed a stereo speaker. Like all their consoles, Nintendo’s Game Boy was a singular and unique design, unlike anything else on the market.

While the Game Boy was ultimately the most successful of the handhelds in the 80s it wasn’t the only device on the market, in fact many of its competitors boasted superior technology and features, not the least of which was a colour screen. Almost ten years later, a colour Game Boy would be released, but the original device was given a simple square screen with dot matrix graphics in four glorious shades of grey.

The Atari Lynx, an early Game Boy competitor, had a large, backlit colour screen, and a wide body with similar controls, however sales were hampered by poor battery life, an expensive price tag and a lack of compelling titles. The Sega Game Gear improved on all those fronts, however it simply couldn’t compete with the overwhelming hype surrounding the Game Boy. Sega infamously tried to battle this with an anti-Game Boy ad campaign but despite decent sales, they simply couldn’t overcome the console giant.

Sega – Anti Gameboy Ad

The Game Boy series also saw numerous ad-on hardware and upgrades which kept users engaged with the device, including a link cable for multi-player sessions, a printer and a camera. The success of handheld consoles and the demand for mobile entertainment continues today. The Game Boy has since evolved into the Nintendo DS, and new handhelds like the PSP and the iPhone have again revolutionized the industry.

‘Acceptable in the 80s’ Part 4: Work is never over

Life is tough. Listening to music can make us feel better about it, but if you think it’s going to bring about any real improvement in the conditions of everyday life, you’re kidding yourself. Pop music is part of the problem. It’s like this…

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Thanks to our friends at Triple J’s ‘The Culture Club’ for permission to republish material from the ‘Acceptable in the 80s’ series, presented by ‘The 80s Are Back’ guest curator Craig Schuftan.

Siobhán Ellis, President of the Lambretta Club of Australia

We caught up with Siobhán Ellis, President of the Lambretta Club of Australia, during the scooter ‘show ‘n’ shine’ event, held as part of the 80s Mod revival weekend at the museum.

Part 1: Siobhán shows off her vintage 1964 ‘winter model’ Lambretta, made in Spain, and recalls the time she rode it along the Nullarbor Plain to raise money for cancer research!

Part 2: Being a mod
Siobhán was definitely a mod in the 80s, and here she recalls buying her first Lambretta and going on scooter runs. She was incredibly active in the scene, running a fan magazine and working as a dj.

Part 3:The classic scooter club – “the journey is part of the event”
Do you know the difference between a classic scooter and a modern scooter? Siobhán explains why an automatic ‘twist and go’ scooter just isn’t the same as vintage.

John Jacobs – video commentator

“Hey you! Square eyes! You got any idea what’s goin’ on inside TV?”

Watch ‘Inside TV’, an Australian media mashup from 1984, that John Jacobs crash edited on a pair of back-to-back domestic VHS decks.

John Jacobs spent much of the 1980s entangled in a deep love-hate abusive relationship with television. It involved many late nights of taping and cutting up TV on a then newfangled gadget: the VCR. Not having any other outlet for the resulting videos, they were distributed by dubbing them back onto the ends of hire video tapes (an amusement at the time and now a snapshot of bad hairdos and silly game shows).

Text and early adventure games in the 80s

Even in their most primitive text-only form, PC-based games have had a richness and quality in their storytelling that is almost unmatched by console and arcade games, at least during the 80s.

Text-based adventure games had begun to appear in the early 70s, pioneered by programmers like William Crowther who co-created ‘Colossal Cave Adventure’, regarded by many as the very first text-adventure. As there was no HDMI or progressive scan on early PC computers, the visuals of these games had to be comprised entirely of either green or white text on a black screen. Of course writers and developers refused to allow technological limitations hinder the development of games that were not only entertaining but also thoughtful.

Progenitor games such as ‘Zork’ (which went on to spawn numerous sequels and spin-offs) allowed users to explore relatively detailed and complex worlds, through text and command input. These early text games could largely be considered as early interactive novels and featured the ability for users to journey through the story using basic commands such as ‘open mailbox’ or ‘take lamp’ as well as directional short-hand such as N, S, E, W for compass points or U and D to move up or down.

In 1980, a software studio called Sierra On-Line appeared in the emerging PC gaming world. Sierra was owned and operated by husband and wife team Ken and Roberta Williams and the pair had been hard at work on a text-adventure that also featured graphics. After three months of solid development, ‘Mystery House’ was launched. Despite the fact that the graphics were static, limited to only a few colours and were essentially little more than crude line art, the game was a massive success. It sold over 15,000 copies and is now considered to be one of the most important and influential games of all time.

At this time, PC gaming was almost the exclusive domain of hobbyists and hardcore geeks, due largely to the cost of early microcomputers. Despite this, the success of games like ‘Mystery House’ propelled writers and developers to produce new games and the computer companies began to develop cheaper, better computers, which were targeted at consumers. By the middle of the decade home computer technology had started to hit significant benchmarks. Systems such as the Apple II had helped evolve PC games from monochrome text adventure to immersive 16-colour psuedo-3D environments.

In the summer of 1984, Sierra On-Line released ‘Kings Quest’, which became an immediate blockbuster hit and another significant benchmark in the development of PC gaming. ‘Kings Quest’ saw over 2.5 million copies sold and spawned eight successful sequels. The complexity of both gameplay and graphics as well as the richness of the storytelling were again unprecedented in computer gaming. Like ‘Mystery House’, ‘Kings Quest’ was written by Roberta Williams.

With these new advances in game engines and animations, text adventures had evolved into simply ‘adventure games’ and the mid to late 80s were a golden era for this type of game. A plethora of new titles and development teams appeared after ‘Kings Quest’, including George Lucas’ new PC division LucasArts, who began releasing cutting-edge film tie-ins as well as introducing all new characters and concepts.

New computer systems began appearing which offered users the ability to not only play games, but to publish documents, create computer graphics and organize their day to day lives. Atari, Radio Shack, Tandy, Commodore, IBM and Apple all entered or returned to the market with revolutionary consumer machines.

Many of these early personal computers possessed features that the consoles and arcade machines of the time lacked including more memory, better graphics and more sophisticated sound capabilities. By the end of the decade developers were able to build their games in full 3D environments such as those used in ‘Wolfenstein 3D’.

Additionally, PCs used floppy discs and cassette tapes instead of cartridges, which meant that gamers now had a writable storage medium which enabled them to save their gaming progress. Of course this also meant that games and programs were now able to be pirated and distributed.

Of all the PC systems that defined computer gaming in the 80s, the most prized and significant is perhaps the Commodore 64. The C64 emerged as something of a computer/console hybrid. While it was a more than capable spreadsheet and word-processing machine (as well as animation and music tool) the C64 was primarily used for gaming and numerous popular titles were developed exclusively for it.

The genius of the C64 was that it was stocked in retail stores rather than boutique electronic stores like most early PCs. It could also be simply plugged into an existing television, which made it extremely desirable for families without any computer knowledge. As a result of the successful marketing, competitive pricing and the quality of the machinery, the C64 went on to sell over 30 million units, making it the best-selling single PC model of all time. The C64 effectively revolutionized the industry and brought computer technology into the home.

Mod memories

Kirstin Sibley became involved in the Sydney Mod scene from the early 1980s while still in high school, until about 1986. During this time, Sibley photographed her friends, wrote of mod events in her school diary, saved press clippings about Mod fashions and collected fanzines and flyers relating to Mod events and bands. Sibley originally intended to use this material to compile her own magazine. However this did not eventuate and to the Powerhouse Museum’s benefit she donated the collection in 2009. Kirstin Sibley’s collection provides a fascinating view of the lives and lifestyle of a vibrant alternative youth culture of the 1980s in Sydney.

Kirsten writes about being a mod…

Formative Years
My interest in mod, and youth cultures in general, really stemmed from a love of ‘new wave’ music coming out of the UK and the associated fashions. I was never going to be part of Sydney beach culture being pale, freckly, quirky and un-athletic (my idea of torture was lying on a hot, sandy beach!) and I was instinctively drawn to the alternatives. I remember being avidly glued to Countdown in my mid teens, using an old-fashioned cassette player to tape the songs that took my fancy. In 1978 my family visited the UK and we spent a week in London, where I was intrigued and transfixed by the new wave and punk street fashions. After my return to Sydney I began to listen to JJ and buy singles at a number of record shops in the CBD – including Phantom Records and another in Town Hall station. I loved frequenting markets (Paddington and Balmain) and independent shops, including those in the Crystal Palace Arcade on George Street. I was in search of both vintage clothing (shoes and accessories from the 1920s to 1960s) and anything contemporary that was a bit different. I remember purchasing a pair of 1960s winkle-pickers (flat, white and sling-back) from Paddington Market and wore these with a tiny white print mini skirt covered in peppermint green and black scribbles. There were a number of bemused and disapproving looks when I wore the outfit on the Frenchs Forest bus home to Roseville!

I first became aware of the UK mod scene probably back in 1979 and in Sydney certainly from 1981 via articles in the press. Two girls in my year at North Sydney Girls, Sarah and Rebekah, had similar taste in music and it was through them that my interest in the Sydney mod scene developed. I also remember listening to a 2JJ program on mod music and being inspired by both contemporary UK bands and also more obscure 60s soul. While I first became involved in 1982 it was in 1983 that I really took it all much more seriously and as a result my friends at school nicknamed me ‘Kirsty-Mod’.

Mod Life
Life as a mod was a social whirl – gigs, nightclubs, scooter runs and shopping. There was always something on and somewhere to go. Life was fast-paced (fuelled by any number of stimulants – coffee, prescription amphetamines or speed) and terribly exciting, especially in my formative years. The weekend usually started on a Friday night at The Quarryman’s pub in Ultimo and often progressed from there to a gig (bands included The Reasons Why, The Go, The In Crowd and Rescue Squad). Social highlights included the Newtown Leagues Club Dayniter (Sept ’84), a trip to Melbourne (Easter ’85), seeing the Style Council play in August 1985 and watching Quadrophenia for the first time. On Saturday mornings I would frantically scour op shops and markets with the aim of finding a new outfit for that evening. My favourite was a grey silk suit made by Conte’s at 14 Kings Road in Newtown (double-breasted three-button jacket with a short straight skirt, which I wore with black and grey sling-backs). The ‘holy grail’ was a pair of Courreges-style white go-go boots (calf length and flat heeled) – alas it was only a number of years later that I eventually owned a pair, but only in black.

Mod Houses
I moved out of home at 19, in 1984, into a rather run-down terrace in Gibbes Street, Newtown with two fellow mods. None of the floors or walls were perpendicular – our lounge sloped down towards the TV, which sat on a milk crate – and my father arranged for a friend to cut some doors to size so they would fit into the lop-sided frames. I remember I held my first mod party there. One of the neighbours was most upset afterwards as his lovingly-tended and mature marijuana plant had been stolen by one of our crowd.

I later moved to Ferndale Street Newtown where Ben, Michael and Fiona lived – another insalubrious address with green mould growing in the bathroom! I had a tiny bedroom – just a single mattress and a clothes rail. It was a mixed social group: working and middle classes; students (I think Ben was at Sydney College of the Arts at the time) and wage earners. Unfortunately at the time half of my records disappeared down to Melbourne, where one mod, who I now hear had a gambling problem, sold them to fund his habit (including my beloved picture-cover singles by the Purple Hearts and Secret Affair).

My last mod residence was on the corner of Station Street and Rawson Streets in Newtown. It was a large tumble-down Victorian mansion, affectionately known as ‘Mutant Manor’, with a vast number of bedrooms and a ‘secret’ tunnel running under the street. A group of younger mods, including Jane, Fiona and I lived there. It became unofficial ‘mod-central’ after the clubs or pubs had closed and random bodies would sometimes turn up in the small hours of the morning. We held a party there in January 1986 but I know at this point that I had moved on from a strictly mod style. While I still wore some 1960s outfits they were rather more flamboyant in style – embellished cocktail dresses with high-heeled winkle-pickers.

When Involvement Ceased?
My main involvement in the mod scene ended some time in 1986. I was beginning to find the ‘rules’ too restrictive, life too repetitive and had became interested in other music and fashions. I moved to Thomsen Street in Darlinghurst with a couple of friends, who had also moved on, and started dating Christopher who was a number of years older and was into the wider Sydney music scene.

I moved to London in 1990 and ultimately lost contact with most of the scene, although Don Hosie and I remained good friends. We went to a series of Hammond organ gigs at the Jazz Café in London in February 2000, bought John Smedley sweaters at Berk in the Burlington Arcade and visited Sherry’s clothing shop off Carnaby Street. It was great hanging out with someone so enthusiastic about all things ‘60s and I know Don really enjoyed the general resurgence in ‘mod’ style and music in London at the time.

What Sub-Cultures Involved In After Mod?
After moving away from the mod scene I was fleetingly involved with the rockabilly crowd. An ex-mod friend was going out with a Teddy Boy at the time and I went to a few gigs. However, while I did try and dress the part I wasn’t keen on the music, couldn’t jive and my heart wasn’t in it. It wasn’t a natural development for me and it felt too contrived jumping from one group scene to the next. To this end I have still maintained my interest in all things 60s and I guess the old mod scene had and still feels like a good ‘fit’ for my tastes and interests.

Rationale for Taking Photographs?
I recorded the mod scene from March 1984 until January 1986, just under two years. I had become interested in photography in my last couple of years at school and photographed friends for my final HSC art project (sometimes with a spattered paint back-drop a la The Face). Taking photos of the mod scene was partly an extension of this but there were other reasons. I was very shy and it was a way of getting involved without having to have a big personality or being one of the elite crowd. Recording the scene was also very much part of the mod ethos – we were very aware that we were doing something different and were incredibly conscious of how we presented ourselves. My photographs were circulated quite widely within the scene – I printed them myself (albeit awful technically!) and sold them at cost price to others. For a relatively small scene there was a proliferation of mod magazines and flyers which were illustrated with photographs of our group and also vintage images that fitted our style. I had always been an avid reader of magazines (including The Face and i-D) and at the time wanted to produce my own fanzine (I starting collecting mod ephemera and photos for this purpose) but unfortunately never got round to publishing. I had always collected from an early age – stamp, shell and rock collections – but this later developed into a love of magazines, books on pop culture and vintage fashion. Perhaps it was ultimately part of making sense of things – collecting, categorising and documenting my surroundings.

Read more about the Sydney Mod scene in the 80s in the Powerhouse Museum Collection.

Australian album art in the 80s part 4: Let there be rock!

There are few more uniquely Australian musical exports than pub rock. For the uninitiated (all two of you) the term has a fairly literal meaning – rock music, that is played in pubs. More specifically the hot, sweaty, beer-stained inner-city and suburban pubs of Australia. The beloved institutions that become second homes to locals, for the better part of their adult lives.

Up until the 70s most live music in Australia was held in non-licensed venues such as churches and community halls. It wasn’t until the baby boomers began to come of age and governments began to loosen their restrictive licensing laws that public bars even began to resemble today’s pubs. In the early days of pub rock, owners began providing live music for free, to draw in crowds. This saw an influx of new Australian bands, many of whom would go on to national and international stardom. Pubs like the Civic Hotel in Sydney, the infamous Star Hotel in Newcastle and The Station in Melbourne helped to create a circuit for bands, allowing them to travel up and down the east coast of Australia and as the pub rock phenomenon exploded, they were able to travel further west to the other capital cities.

The venues were small, the crowds were drunk and the style was no frills, high octane rock ‘n’ roll. There were very few solos or histrionics, just fist pumping and head banging anthems for those unforgettable nights that you just can’t seem to remember.

Cold Chisel live at the Star Hotel 1981

From the late 70s to the early 90s there were hundreds of bands that emerged from the pub rock scene. Many of them didn’t go anywhere beyond a few shows, others are still with us today. Leading the charge in the 80s were perennial favourites Cold Chisel, who mixed political angst with working class machismo and turned it into art. ‘Swingshift’, their 1981 live album, captures singer Jimmy Barnes on stage, mid-song, and really encapsulates the essence of not only the band’s sound and personality, but the energy and atmosphere of an 80s pub rock show.

The photo was taken during the band’s 1980 ‘Youth In Asia’ tour (also where the album was recorded) which saw the band play an astounding 64 dates in 15 cities over 88 days. The name ‘swingshift’ was so chosen, according to the band, for being the midnight to dawn shift in mental asylums, the shift that staff dread as it’s usually when the inmates are at their most out of control.

Before Jay Z, Metallica and Prince, there was AC/DC who released ‘Back In Black’ in 1980 – their first studio album after the death of singer and founding member Bon Scott. The cover features little more than the band’s logo and album titled embossed on a jet-black cover, and was designed by long-time collaborator Bob Defrin. It’s a striking way to commemorate the passing of a beloved member, and the beginning of a new era. AC/DC are arguably the most successful and influential pub rock band of all time and they continue to be one of the most profitable touring bands in the world. ‘Back In Black’ itself is one of the highest selling records of all time, and is commonly regarded as one of the best rock albums ever recorded. Quite a feat for a little group from Sydney who cut their teeth in the early days like so many others.

Another big name in pub rock from Adelaide, The Angels released a similarly classic and starkly designed record in 1980. Dark Room features the band’s name and album title running along the entire top and bottom of the cover (set in album art go-to font Eurostile Wide) and peering out from the darkness are a pair of eyes, possibly belonging to singer Doc Neeson. It’s an eerie and striking image and the influence the cover art seems to have extended far and wide, most notably with defunct stoner rock group Tumbleweed paying tribute on their 2000 swan-song ‘Mumbo Jumbo’.

Not all pub rock is about screaming into a microphone and sweating on the front row though, and by the end of the decade the sound and the the style had definitely evolved. INXS helped usher in a new era of cool with their skateboards & leather cover for 1987s ‘Kick’. While the traditional pub rock scene was still thriving, INXS and others had began to break away into a movement that was more concerned with fashion than fist-fighting. Designed by Nick Egan (who also photographed the band and directed a number of their music videos) it really captures the zeitgeist of the late 80s, taking its cues from youth and street culture.

We take quite a big jump across rock ‘n’ roll in the 80s, from the early riotous rock ‘n’ rollers to the image conscious and disaffected bands that round out the decade, but ultimately the principle stays the same – people playing loud music for people who love to listen to it. The pub rock and live music scene have taken some serious blows over the last few decades, from the proliferation of poker machines to the changing liquor and noise restriction laws, and so there are increasingly fewer opportunities for new and unknown bands to play. Just think how different the music industry would be now if AC/DC and INXS had never been given the chance to play outside the garage.

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