[Iaind]

Has anyone been watching the Electric Dreams programmes on BBC4? The basic premise is that a family lives through the 70's, 80's and 90's using only the tech that was available at the time.

Last week was the 70's and this week was the 80's.

Last week; BBC iPlayer - Electric Dreams: 1970s

Being nearly 50 , I was aware of tech coming into peoples lifes at the time, and a lot of what was on show I can remember, although a lot of the stuff from the 80's I was sure was around a lot earlier than that!

They had the BBC Micro on show tonight, no internet, loading games from a tape that took 20 minutes to discover that they were rubbish, 64k of ram (more than enough for anybody), 256 colours - yea! those were the days.

For anybody of a certain age, this is a great wee programme that I'm sure will bring back many memories.

Cheers,
Iain

[Kieron]

This is a brilliant show. Also "Designing the decades" is similar.

What shocked me was the destruction of the family unit that occurred in the late 70's. The kids get tech-toys and all disappear into their bedrooms

Loved the wallpaper, music centre's, three channel TV etc. A much simpler (and happier) time....

[meltonboy]

I have really enjoyed this show and have been watching it together with "designing the decade".

I was born in 72, so can really connect with the 80's show. I loved the way that the father figure was originally very nostalgic then decided that the old technology was really rubbish when you have been living with 2009 gadgets.

Highlights for me:

* Turning the central heating off and having a teasmade to make up for it.

* Fun on the chopper bikes (i had a grifter in the early 80's), then the lad being sent to his room in the 70's and realsing that without any entertainment, this was a real punishment.

* The battle of the 80's computers, followed by the announcement that it doesn't come with a monitor, you have to use the household's only tv (we had our Atari 800 on a tea trolley to wheel in and out).

* One of the children breaking the video player by trying to put a betamax tape into a vhs player.

* Trying to load a game on the BBC via the tape machine and it taking aaaages, plus using BASIC to put funny messages on the screen (how many times at school did we write "<insert name> smells of poo"

* As soon as they had hand held games in the late 80's they all cleared off to their own room

* The basic (and very pertinent) conclusion by the girls that 80's technology was rubbish as in 2009 you just turn soemthing on and it works straight away.

A real trip down memory lane for me

MB