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Sony Betamax VCR: Born May 10, 1975

Dave Farquhar 1980s May 11, 2026May 11, 2026 1 Comment

The consumer VCR turns 51 this week. On May 10, 1975, Sony introduced the Betamax. Although Betamax lost the famous format war, it kicked the door open, being the first VCR format that mere mortals could aspire to own and use.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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How the Vectrex game console sunk a 124-year-old company

Dave Farquhar 1980s, Retro Gaming May 4, 2026May 4, 2026 1 Comment

On May 4, 1984, Milton Bradley, a leading producer of board games for 124 years, agreed to sell itself to Hasbro. Changes in the way people played games in the 80s, especially kids, put pressure on the company. In this blog post, I’ll explain how changing times led Milton Bradley to make a transformational bet at the worst possible time that ultimately sunk the maker of the game Battleship, and what happened to what was left of Milton Bradley.

Dave Farquhar

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Toshiba’s Soviet nuclear submarine scandal

Dave Farquhar 1980s March 17, 2026March 17, 2026

On March 19, 1987, the Pentagon announced that it had learned the Soviet Union acquired machine tooling for making submarine propeller blades from Toshiba Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, better known as a major electronics manufacturer. Between the machine tools the Soviets acquired from Toshiba and Norwegian weapons maker Kongsberg, the Soviets were able to make their submarines harder to detect, identify, and track.

One of the results of scandal was the U.S. Government banning its own use of Toshiba computers and certain other products from Toshiba until the end of 1991. The Japanese government was unhappy with the ban, but did not intervene. This Cold War scandal is largely forgotten today but was a major incident at the time.

Dave Farquhar

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Blue Monday by New Order released, 1983

Dave Farquhar 1980s March 6, 2026March 6, 2026

On March 7, 1983, one of the greatest New Wave songs of all time was released. And it shipped in an unusual record sleeve shaped like a floppy disk, complete with cutouts so the record could show through like the floppy part of an 8- or 5.25-inch computer disk. The song was Blue Monday by New Order.

Dave Farquhar

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When the VCR became popular and legal

Dave Farquhar 1980s January 16, 2026January 16, 2026

When did VCRs get popular? It’s hard to give an exact date. I was alive in the 1980s, and it was a gradual thing. But I will argue that 1984 is as good of a starting point as any, because 1984 was the year VCRs became legal. Yes, part of the problem with VCR adoption was the question of whether they violated copyright law. But the Supreme Court settled that on January 17, 1984.

Dave Farquhar

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Max Headroom incident of Nov 22, 1987

Dave Farquhar 1980s November 21, 2025November 21, 2025

It was November 22, 1987, that the most notorious unsolved pirate television broadcast happened in Chicago. It was the Max Headroom incident.

Dave Farquhar

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When Nintendo sued Blockbuster

Dave Farquhar 1980s, Retro Gaming July 28, 2025July 28, 2025

Here’s a late ’80s memory you may not have thought about in a while. Do you remember going to the video rental store to rent a video game and getting the cartridge but not getting the instruction booklet? The reason video stores would rent you a cartridge without instructions dates back to events that started in late July 1989, when Nintendo sued Blockbuster.

Dave Farquhar

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GE Widescreen 1000: Big time TV for big budgets

Dave Farquhar 1980s June 3, 2025June 3, 2025

The GE Widescreen 1000 was a big time TV for big time budgets in an era of excess, with the tagline “This is GE Performance Television.” Introduced in June 1978, it cost about 3/4 as much as a family sedan at the time. But middle class families weren’t the target audience for this set.

The General Electric Widescreen 1000 (WS1000) cost $2,800. For the money you got a 45-inch screen, hardwood veneer paneling, two speakers, and a spot to plant a matching VCR.

Dave Farquhar

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Rax restaurant chain from the 1980s

Dave Farquhar 1980s January 30, 2024January 22, 2024

Rax was a fast growing fast food restaurant chain in the 1980s. It was based out of Columbus, Ohio, and it was a direct competitor to Arby’s. The chain still exists today. But the total number of stores in Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky where it survives is lower than the number of stores they once had just in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Dave Farquhar

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Rough Riders toys 1980s

Dave Farquhar 1980s January 9, 2024January 1, 2024

Rough Riders toy trucks were popular line of motorized toys in the 1980s, introduced in 1981. They competed directly with Stompers, which were made by Schaper. Rough Riders were made by LJN. The first-generation Rough Riders were fairly blatant ripoffs of the first-generation Stomper design.

Dave Farquhar

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