First off, let me just thank Chris for making me a mod here. I'll never wanna leave. :) :lol:

Anyway, even though I like the whole decade, strange as it may sound, I've always been really fascinated with the early and mid 80's even more (and how it progressed from the 70's). I suppose that's partly because that was the beginning of its own individuality, as well as the lesser fact that I very vaguely, if at all recall the first half of the decade. Once we get to about 1987/88, I had a pretty good memory of things.

I was just thinking about how we've changed with things like TV, especially early in the decade. A few examples:

Video Games: Starting with Atari games like Pac Man (which I still love, despite its simplicity), and Space Invaders, home video gaming was born. At first, these games were played in video arcades, but the machines could be found many places, from movie theatres to 7-11. :D It's apparent Marty McFly was a fan of these early games.

Due to their emerging popularity, the Atari system was born. It later morphed into the NES ( B) ) and changed how we looked at games. Even ten years earlier, at the dawn of the 1970's, this was probably unheard of.

MTV: For the first couple years of the decade, hit radio consisted of pop/rock ballads from REO Speedwagon and Christopher Cross; and album rockers like Journey and Foreigner. Though these artists were well liked (later in the decade as well), some people were bored with the little variety.

In '81, MTV began broadcasting videos 24/7, even though they didn't have much to play at first. Within two years, many visual pop stars emerged, such as Madonna, Billy Idol, and Prince. It also heavily revived the careers of older rock musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, ZZ Top, and Tina Turner. It didn't just change the face of music (New Wave bands would've probably never had a chance without it), but culture in the 1980's and beyond.

Do y'all have any more examples OR ideas of how these things might've turned out if the above never came out? :unsure: :blink:

You've missed the most important of all, Spotty: ^_^

Back to the Future -

Without it, all of us fans would be doing other things instead of talking about and appreciating the trilogy. :D

LOL, I think I got overexcited about this section and wrote a million essays. :o :lol:

Yeah, maybe we really would be on Shandy's Chlorine Message Board in that case. :D

Seriously though, I wonder if, in the BTTF world, there was another famous movie trilogy that didn't exist in our world. Marty could've gone to see Part 1 of it on TP 7/3/85.

Yeah, it's called "Return to the past" :o

But anyway, we probably should stay on topic... sorry for the interruption. ;)

I own and have read the book "Game Over: Press start to continue" which is a story about the history of nintendo. It is a long book but I'll sumarize the 80s part. Nintendo had a huge effect on video games because before 1983 many many companies were making systems and games. In the late 70s video games and arcades started and did very well so companies tryed to get on in the craze too. Too many companies made too many games and too many copies for there own good and they all went out of or almost went of out business. Atari even threw out 10 million game copies in the New Mexico desert. Video games were also getting competiton from computer games. The entire home video game market crashed. Unless something happened fast, video games would end up being a footnote in your history book and you would be playing on the computer more.

Then Nintendo was doing very successeful in Japan and in 1985 came to America. At first the sales of the nintendo were good but nothing spectualar. Then in the years folowing Nintendo sold many many many more systems and games and saved the video game market. Other companies followed and everyone went back to video games. The home console market led to the end of arcades being highly popular and video games have sold as well as if not better than computer games.

MTV had a huge effect on popular culuture and continues to have a major effect today. In the early 80s when it first started they didn't have too many videos and were un sure of how to handle it. Then MTV became widly popular and videos had a huge effect on pop culuture. VH1 even tried to rival its success. Eventually MTV led to the end of 80s music though. :(

I was reading "High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, Second Edition", which gives a much better history of games from when they were first created for the arcades to where they are now. Even has info on the companies themselves and their gaming systems, and what deals they had with the other companies. It does mention Pac Man, Atari, Nintendo in there.

I'll have to read that sometime then. The book I read focused more on nintendo (obviously since it was the story of nintendo) but it did go into some details about other things. Also I once saw a special on the G4 channel about games from this time period and it was very good.

I still own some of those 80s games, just haven't played them in years. I even have a Colecovison, that came with Donkey Kong & Donkey Kong Jr. The Colecovision came out before Nintendo came out with their NES.