Growing Up '80s

Way back in the 1980s, before the internet was a "thing", Darren and Robin dreamed of connecting their Commodore 64s to other computers. Could we change our grades on the school computers? Could we play games against super intelligent military computers? And then we actually got our first modems! From our first online moments with 300 and 1200 baud modems to running a BBS on Darren's Amiga 500, from writing our own little terminal programs to aspiring to code online games, from chatting with the sysop to city-wide games of Steve Jackson's Killer, those early online years on the Bulletin Board Systems were full of excitement. Those days waned as "The Internet" became accessible in the early '90s at their university, but Robin and Darren still manage to fill nearly 2 hours with '80s BBS memories.

What boy growing up in the 1980s wasn't fascinated by Detectives? Certainly not our two hosts! Join Robin and Darren as they talk about all the Detective books, video games, TV shows and board games they enjoyed as kids growing up in the 1980s!

Darren and Robin share their memories of learning music at school and in private piano lessons, and eventually buying guitars and drums, recording equipment, and forming bands. Includes some terrible/awesome home recordings from the 1980s and early 1990s. -= Podcast cover art made with the use of AI - Kind of obvious? =-

This time, Darren and Robin talk about our memories of Construction Set games and programs from Electronic Arts and other similar software that allowed us to create in addition to playing.

Join your friends, Robin and Darren as they talk about all the things that they love about Steve Lisberger and Disney's 1982 classic, TRON! If you don't know what we're talking about, you're listening to the wrong podcast.

Board games! Back when we were little kids, "let's play a board game" might be suggested when we claimed to be bored. But, as we grew up, we found a number of board games that really entertained us. And this was all pre-Catan. We also talk about a bunch of board game adjacent games that we played in the 1980s. -= Podcast cover art made with the use of AI - Kind of obvious? =-

Strap yourself into your Edgley Optica ultralight for 90 minutes of one of Robin's favourite movies ever! Slipstream is an oft-forgotten sci-fi movie from 1989 staring Star Wars' Mark Hamill, Aliens' Bill Paxton and Jurassic Park's Bob Peck. And if that doesn't get you wanting to watch it, Slipstream was produced by Gary Kurtz (who also produced Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back) and was directed by Steven Lisberger who also directed Tron! With all the big names involved in its production it's gotta be great, right? Well... it's not great. But it does have a lot of great elements in it and even Darren agrees it gets better with subsequent viewings.

That big fat orange cat was a great source of entertainment and influence upon us as young kids at the beginning of the '80s. After a bit of a history lesson, listen to how Darren and Robin first discovered Garfield and collected the comics. They also had a few stuffed toys from the Garfield comics and Darren rediscovers a rare and strange alternate Garfield comic/story compilation from his childhood.

Collecting Comic Books! How we were introduced to comics and realized that we were collectors. We talk about buying the comics that everyone bought, and how we discovered the comics that we liked. How about the comic book stores in the neighbourhood? We go through it all!

Robin and Darren go on a full ramble about things that fascinated us as kids in the '80s. Naturally we're talking about home computers, but also, Space Shuttles, how-to-draw books, the paranormal, and awesome vehicles, like the A-Team Van, and Winnebegos!