10 Trendy Products You Couldn't Do Without in 1980

Video Cassette Recorder (VCR)

Although the earliest invention of the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) began in the 1950's, it was not until the late 1970s, when European and Japanese companies developed more technically advanced machines which resulted in the VCR becoming a mass market consumer product. By 1980 there were three competing technical standards.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, DVD gradually overtook VHS as the most popular format for playback of prerecorded video. This may mark the end of the VCR.

Boombox

A Boombox -aka Jambox, Wogga box, radio-cassette - was introduced in the late 1970's. It was a portable stereo systems capable of playing radio stations and recorded music (usually cassettes), at relatively high volume. They were quite heavy and large. The most basic features included volume, tone and balance (Left/Right) controls. More sophisticated models had features such as dual cassette decks (often featuring high-speed dubbing), separate bass level control, five- or 10-band graphic equalizers, Dolby noise reduction, analog or LED sound level.

Atari

A popular arcade and home video game system in the 1970's and 1980's, the Atari included popular games like Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong.

Personal Stereo (aka Walkman)

The personal stereo is a portable audio player using an audiocassette player. It was originally developed by Sony in 1979 for the co-chairman who wanted to be able to listen to operas during plane trips. It became the most widely used method of listening to music while travelling or exercising. Although the walkman has been widely replaced by more technically advanced audio players, there are still seen in everyday life in may countries where the modern technology is not available.

Rubik's Cube

Rubik's Cube was invented in 1974 by Ernő Rubik. Originally called the "Magic Cube" by its inventor, it was renamed "Rubik's Cube" 1980 and also won the 1980 German Game of the Year (Spiel des Jahres) special award for Best Puzzle. It is said to be the world's best-selling toy, with some 300,000,000 Rubik's Cubes and imitations sold worldwide.

In a typical Cube, each face is covered by nine stickers of one of six solid colours. When the puzzle is solved, each face of the Cube is a solid colour.

Roller Skates

The roller skates we knew in 1980 were much different than the roller skates we see today. The difference was the design. Whereas today we have inline skates that consists of two, three, four or five wheels arranged in a single line, the roller skates back then had a quad design configuration of 2 wheels in the front and 2 wheels in the back, with the brake located in the toe. The popularity of roller skates in the late 19th century made way for the creation of roller rinks.

Cassette Tapes

Your boombox or walkman wouldn't be very useful without cassette tapes. Although it was originally created for use in dictation machines, the compact cassette became a popular medium for distributing prerecorded music. It consisted of two sides and played on average a total of 60 minutes of music per tape.

Michael Jackson Album

Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, released in 1979, made music history becoming the first album ever to have four top-ten hits, including the number-one hits, "Don't Stop "Til You Get Enough" and "Rock with You". It reached #3 in the Billboard album charts, spending 48 consecutive weeks on the Top 20. The album sold 20 million copies worldwide. Despite

The album won him several awards in 1980, including "Favorite Soul/R&B Album", "Favorite Male Soul/R&B Artist", Favorite Soul/R&B Single, "Top Black Artist", "Top Black Album", and "Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male". In 2003, the TV network VH1 named Off the Wall the thirty-sixth greatest album of all time. Rolling Stone ranked it #68 in their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

His next big album, Thriller, was released in 1982 and became the biggest selling album of all time with worldwide sales reaching over 104 million copies.

Friday the 13th Movie

Released in 1980, Friday the 13th is based on the fictional character of Jason Voorhees, who supposedly drowned at Camp Crystal Lake as a boy. Decades later, the lake is rumored to be "cursed", and is the setting for a series of mass murders. Jason is featured in all of the films, either as the killer or as the motivation for the killings.

The Friday the 13th films were never popular with the critics, in contrast to other slasher films like Halloween. Nevertheless, the films were a financial success, prompting Paramount to release more sequels. When comparing Friday the 13th with the other top-grossing American horror franchises-the Hannibal Lecter series, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Psycho, Scream, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Child"s Play-and adjusting for the 2005 inflation, Friday the 13th is the highest grossing horror franchise at approximately $523 million.

Fashion Trends

1980's are synonymous with a wide variety of crazy fashion trends like denim, leather, bright colours, baggy t-shirts, high top sneakers, big hair, stone-washed jeans, jelly shoes, etc. 80's trends were bold and loud and most people sported one or several of those trends.