Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. - Culture (3)

Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. - Culture (3) - Nairaland

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by amnesty7: 8:10am On Apr 06

Very educative and clean thread: no bigotry, no insults. Op must be at least 55 by now. Thank you for this historical journey.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by CJStarz: 8:11am On Apr 06

Those good old days... When somebody's child was everybody's child.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Discountsempai: 8:11am On Apr 06

naptu2:
Video cassette recorder (VCR)

We got our very first VCR in 1979. It was a top loading VHS VCR. The video cassette was loaded into the VCR from the top.

I've just remembered something funny. We sometimes banged the top of the VCR when the picture was not clear and it would become clear.

I thought our situation was bad, but I didn't know anything.

I spent my holiday with family friends in Ikeja in 1985 and you needed to see the way that they banged their VCR. In fact, someone suggested that they should take their VCR outside and ride their bikes on it.

Of course I knew how to use methylated spirit and tissue to clean the video head when it was dirty (although we sometimes had video head cleaning cassettes).

The VCR in the first picture looks very much like the type that we bought in 1979, but I can also see some differences (the socket for the remote control is not there). It was a top loading VCR and although we got other more modern VCRs, this one lasted until 1993.

That VCR had a remote control, but it came with a cord that you had to attach to the VCR before it could function.

Here is a picture of that exact type of remote control (second picture).

I made that remote my microphone.

Wonder why your family didn't get a Betamax. Better picture quality.

My neighbours had a Betamax, that's where I watched Star wars for the first time ever . Clear clear very clear image compared to VHS.

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by farady(m): 8:11am On Apr 06

naptu2 is a senior man in his late 50s or early 60s. Man really had a privileged beginning to have had these gadgets at that time. I think it was in 1980 our dad bought the first television set in the home; a 12" President Black and White tv. Before now, we go to neighbours apartment to watch tv. Then the stations commence transmission by 4:30pm on weekdays and either 12 noon or 1pm on weekends. Prior to that time, some vertical lines would appear at about 4pm with a continuous single pilot sound.

I could relate with the submissions from the op. For radio, dad had this die hard transistor radio that has MW, SW1, SW2 and SW3. In the early 80s, I fell in love with the BBC world service that transmits on SW2 or 3. Next was the VOA. The BBC till date has remained my favourite news channel.

Like the op, i monitored the coups of Dec 31st 1983, 1985 via the radio.

Thank God for the advance in technology but things have really turned crazy in Nigeria.

I pray God to restore the lost glory of Nigeria

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Discountsempai: 8:12am On Apr 06

naptu2:
Hi-Fi

We also had a hi-fi system. It consisted of a record player (with the hook that allows you to stack records), a casette player and an 8 track tape player (cartridge). It also had a radio and I remember that the radio dial was iluminated with green light.

This (the photo below) is not the exact type of hi-fi system, but it is similar. Ours had the same kind of glass cover over the record player and cassette player. I think the 8-track tape player was more central.

There were little shelves at opposite ends of the sitting room and they were for the speakers for the audio system (I assume that it produced better stereo sound in those locations). The telephone was on a similar but lower shelf at another end of the sitting room.

My maternal grandad had this in his house. Always looked like a very sophisticated piece of electronics.

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by U09ce: 8:13am On Apr 06

Baba naptu2, arguably NL's top contributor to quality posts. Ese gan, Sir

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Discountsempai: 8:14am On Apr 06

naptu2:
8 track tape

This is an 8 track tape. We called it cartridge. This is what we used before there were audio cassettes. Hi-fi systems had 8 track players and there were 8 track players in cars.

The good old 8 track players. DIsplaced by the compact cassete eventually. Now the same compact cassete is as dead as the dodo.

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Kobicove(m): 8:15am On Apr 06

LeeSmart:
This Op suppose don get grandchildren by now😆
Really embarrassing i don't know any of these things😢😢

Na because you be Indomie Generation baby grin

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Kobicove(m): 8:16am On Apr 06

Discountsempai:
The good old 8 track players. DIsplaced by the compact cassete eventually. Now the same compact cassete is as dead as the dodo.

Technology keeps evolving

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by ResearchHedge22(m): 8:16am On Apr 06

naptu2:
Hi-Fi

We also had a hi-fi system. It consisted of a record player (with the hook that allows you to stack records), a casette player and an 8 track tape player (cartridge). It also had a radio and I remember that the radio dial was iluminated with green light.

This (the photo below) is not the exact type of hi-fi system, but it is similar. Ours had the same kind of glass cover over the record player and cassette player. I think the 8-track tape player was more central.

There were little shelves at opposite ends of the sitting room and they were for the speakers for the audio system (I assume that it produced better stereo sound in those locations). The telephone was on a similar but lower shelf at another end of the sitting room.

The good old days! Funny enough, we still got this at my parent's house. Still lying there with two big Kenwood speakers.

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by anonimi: 8:17am On Apr 06

CJStarz:
Those good old days... When somebody's child was everybody's child.

Was that why progressive governors then prioritised education for all children, in schools with adequate number of well paid teachers huh

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Discountsempai: 8:17am On Apr 06

Osariemen12:
Don't know most of the things here. Some of them look like Iranian weapons.

I was a child of the 1980's and even then some of those things were already yesterday's story..that 8 track player is a good example

In 1988, was messing around in one of the rooms in the house where I grew up in, and found some old 8 track players (kept there by an old friend of my father's for some reason). Did not know what they were at all.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Discountsempai: 8:21am On Apr 06

Kobicove:
Technology keeps evolving

Literially

My phone can now do the work of my local bank branch, play videos and live tv, play music, play radio, play computer games, give me directions while I am driving, show me sattelite images of my city, and give me a satellite view of where I live, take clear photographs, and even look up where people are. I can even buy groceries , clothes and so forth using it.

Back in 1993, I would have needed separate pieces of equipment plus visit some physical building to do the above...if I was an adult as I am now. And a phone back then was just an instrument for recieveing and making calls.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by ResearchHedge22(m): 8:23am On Apr 06

naptu2:
Binatone TV Master

This was the first video game that I ever saw.

This is the Binatone Tv Master. I don't even know when we got it.

I remember realising one day that this thing had been in my house for as long as I could remember and I didn't even know what it was.

That's when I began experimenting and investigating and I discovered that it was a video game. Can you believe that this thing could work on the gigantic black and white TV as well as the colour TV??

I only remember the tennis game. Can't remember any other. It was a white dot going back and forth across a white line (yes, the games were in black and white). There were no cartridges, CDs or anything like that. The games were on a chip that was embedded in the console.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfVZ9YtzuiE

Am beginning to have a tinge of nostalgia. We played this growing up. The console is still at home till today.

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Discountsempai: 8:25am On Apr 06

Ojady:
@Op: you cannot be less than 45 years of age. This is because all these were typical of a middle class home circa 1969 to 1994. If your living room was like this or had any of these, your family was not poor. If we press further, you'd probably say your folks had either a Peugeot, a Datsun, a Passat/Santana, Volkswagen Beetle, Benz 200 etc; that one if not both folks was employed and the other had a grocery shop; that you either went to FGC, Command or Missionary School etc Oh! how things have changed!!!

Well, my family had some of those things , but if you told my father he was rich, he would have laughed at you.

Back in the 1980's and 90's, my parents had side hustles . Especially after the time SAP was introduced.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by naptu2(op): 8:26am On Apr 06

Discountsempai:
Well, my family had some of those things , but if you told my father he was rich, he would have laughed at you.

Back in the 1980's and 90's, my parents had side hustles . Especially after the time SAP was introduced.

SAP! It was SAP that changed everything. You didn't have to be rich to have all these but that changed after SAP.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by sunnedee: 8:26am On Apr 06

naptu2:
Colour TV

In 1979 we got a colour TV in addition to the black and white TV. I remember that we got that TV set in 1979, but I don't remember what happened to it afterwards. The body was wood brown and it had push buttons instead of the usual VHF and UHF dials. It's not exactly the same, but it was kind of simar to the TV in the first picture.

We later got an Orion colour TV. It was silver and had UHF and VHF dials. It kind of looks like the TV in the second picture, but it's not exactly the same.

In 1985 my dad went to Japan and came back with a futuristic TV set. I had never seen anything like it. It was my favourite. It was a Panasonic. It was completely different from the other TV sets in the house. This TV set had numerous buttons, could get 100 channels and had 25 spaces to store channels. No other TV set in the house had that. It also had a cordless remote control! It kind of looks like the TV in the third pucture, but it was slightly different. Ours had a panel with a door that easily blended into the rest of the TV. The many buttons were behind the door.

There was a time that we damaged all the TVs around a week or two before Christmas. My dad was very happy. At last there would be peace. He refused to repair the TVs. There was no TV on Christmas Day. We had to wait for my dad to go to sleep, then we would put on the old black and white TV (which had volume problems) and then someone would sit close to the TV (to hear what was being said) and that person would tell everyone else what was happening on Another Life or whatever series we didn't want to miss.

My dad eventually fixed the TVs before New Year's Day.

Omo. You be ancestor!
We had all these too except the telephone and game console.
When my father passed away, I couldn't discard them and kept all his electronics for years.
I still have the black and white TV at home right now.
Weldone op for the memories.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by zedman1(m): 8:27am On Apr 06*

Mirasteel:
The good lovely old days

I was expecting this comment, but when I look back, were all these things good compared to what's in use now? See, we even had the privilege of replacing the old black and white TV with a "colour" TV, but that one, there were some times we had to give it a hard slap to reset the colour - lol, a malfunction though.
Most homes then only made use of vegetable oils on special occasions because of the cost. Palm oil was what we mostly used.
Rice, not even the stone-free rice, was mostly prepared on Sundays and on special occasions. Most of us only heard about Uncle Ben's stone-free rice; we neither saw nor tasted it until the early 90's.
If you wanted to visit a friend, irrespective of how far their location was, if you or they don't have a telephone (Land line), just know your journey is a gamble, 'cos you might not meet them at home and you have no one to blame for that.
And to think that we didn't even belong to the lower class then. This was what most people in the middle class experienced. There are things I don't fancy when I look back to those days, particularly during the military era.

Well, as per security, there were more cases of house robbery and road blocks by robbers, yet we could still say it was better then than now, cos there were no bandits, terrorists or mass murder cases as compared to now. A single bad news was heard by almost everyone across the country, whereas today, people carry on like nothing happened even if hundreds of persons lost their lives in a day. There has also been a great increase in moral decadence now, with little to no empathy or sympathy.
In summary, like someone once said, things change, some for good and others for worse but our minds are conditioned to forget about bad thiings of the past more than the good ones. We remember the good ones more, hence the saying " the good old days". So in essence, there's no such thing as the good old days. We just remember the good times of the past.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by ResearchHedge22(m): 8:32am On Apr 06*

naptu2:
Video cassette recorder (VCR)

We got our very first VCR in 1979. It was a top loading VHS VCR. The video cassette was loaded into the VCR from the top.

I've just remembered something funny. We sometimes banged the top of the VCR when the picture was not clear and it would become clear.

I thought our situation was bad, but I didn't know anything.

I spent my holiday with family friends in Ikeja in 1985 and you needed to see the way that they banged their VCR. In fact, someone suggested that they should take their VCR outside and ride their bikes on it.

Of course I knew how to use methylated spirit and tissue to clean the video head when it was dirty (although we sometimes had video head cleaning cassettes).

The VCR in the first picture looks very much like the type that we bought in 1979, but I can also see some differences (the socket for the remote control is not there). It was a top loading VCR and although we got other more modern VCRs, this one lasted until 1993.

That VCR had a remote control, but it came with a cord that you had to attach to the VCR before it could function.

Here is a picture of that exact type of remote control (second picture).

I made that remote my microphone.

I remember the cord. We still got this at home too. It just become obsolete as the years passed. The VHS tapes my Dad bought back then are still at home till this very day. He's got so much stuffs from way back. Still figuring out what we might do with them. You just brought back all those memories.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by IbnB: 8:32am On Apr 06*

Ojady:
@Op: you cannot be less than 45 years of age. This is because all these were typical of a middle class home circa 1969 to 1994. If your living room was like this or had any of these, your family was not poor. If we press further, you'd probably say your folks had either a Peugeot, a Datsun, a Passat/Santana, Volkswagen Beetle, Benz 200 etc; that one if not both folks was employed and the other had a grocery shop; that you either went to FGC, Command or Missionary School etc Oh! how things have changed!!!

That guy is in his mid fifties at least...and he still doesn't have enough sense to see through Tinubu's scams

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by TheStoriesOfMan: 8:33am On Apr 06

SisterAnn:
The title said things he had in his palour then and you are talking about been a kid.

Having those things didn't qualify as well to do then because my dad had all those things and even Datsun car but was not anywhere called rich.

The only take from this thread is that dude is as old as Methuselah now for him to have owned these properties.

But probably because he's an APC supporter and a tribal bigot, sense became far from him.

I'm telling you. I used to respect him until he started reasoning haywire. With the way the economy is going, I doubt if he can afford a Roomba.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by naptu2(op): 8:35am On Apr 06

ResearchHedge22:
I remember the cord. We still got this at home too. It just become obsolete as the years passed. The VHS tapes my Dad bought back then are still at home till this very day. He's got so much stuffs from way back. Still figuring out what we might to with them. You just brought back all those memories.

It was because of the rectangular shape of the remote and the cord that I converted it into my "microphone" while watching music videos.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Treasure17(m): 8:38am On Apr 06

Elders dey this forum for real.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by TheStoriesOfMan: 8:40am On Apr 06

Those legacy objects you say in the 70's was what I had in the 50's.

America and Japan were producing new gadgets, especially the Atari games far back in the 60's. I worked in NPA, so I got them first hand before anybody in the country does. Good ol days when travelling from Nigeria to UK was a snap of the finger. Na monthly allowance I dey use fly plane.

You didn't even mentioned terrestrial dish mounted on the ground with thick iron poles.

When I checked my store, I had so many gadgets as a single man that year. I just smiled.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by edydeyemi(m): 8:44am On Apr 06

Axis313:
So oga naptu2 na my elder for this forum.
By those years you mentioned,I was still in another world making my preparation to visit this world.
But I met black and white TV, portable radio,video cassette player.
May your day be long sir.

I follow doff my hat for Oga Naptu2, na boss him be. I grew up in the era of black & white TV, Nitel ring dial telephones, turntables with massive Kenwood speakers, Video cassette players with attached remotes (ours was a Hitachi Video player that had a calendar up to the year 2010 grin

), video sender devices that let you broadcast movies to closeby neighbours. And yes, the first video game I ever played was Pac-Man; my primary school introduced computer studies when I was about to leave in '96, and we were permitted to use the PC for a couple of minutes every Wednesday. Boy! Life was much simpler back then.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by JuanDeDios: 8:44am On Apr 06

Flangelo12:
But those dialup phones don't have screens.

How did you receive alert?

1 Like

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Giigglee: 8:46am On Apr 06

naptu2:
Antenna

Now here's the thing. I remember quite well that the black and white TV set had a very powerful indoor antenna. I remember tuning that antenna back in the 1970s. The antenna was not inbuilt. It had two very long telescopic antennas that were connected to a base and you could do something to that base (I no longer remember what) to increase the signal strength and it had a particular kind of cable (I'm not even going to try to describe the cable) that you could connect to the TV. There was a dial on the base, but I don't remember how it was used to increase the signal strength.

We switched to an outdoor antenna (on the roof of the house) during the 1979 redecoration.

Well, since we stopped using the black and white TV, I made the antenna mine and converted it to another use. I discovered that I could get greater reception on the home audio system if I connected that antenna to it. It made no difference on MW, but it made all the difference on SW. Foreign radio stations like the BBC and VOA became much clearer.

It looked very similar to the first antenna and it had the same colour as the second antenna.

This is really back when

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by johnie: 8:47am On Apr 06

naptu2:
Video cassette recorder (VCR)

We got our very first VCR in 1979. It was a top loading VHS VCR. The video cassette was loaded into the VCR from the top.

I've just remembered something funny. We sometimes banged the top of the VCR when the picture was not clear and it would become clear.

I thought our situation was bad, but I didn't know anything.

I spent my holiday with family friends in Ikeja in 1985 and you needed to see the way that they banged their VCR. In fact, someone suggested that they should take their VCR outside and ride their bikes on it.

Of course I knew how to use methylated spirit and tissue to clean the video head when it was dirty (although we sometimes had video head cleaning cassettes).

The VCR in the first picture looks very much like the type that we bought in 1979, but I can also see some differences (the socket for the remote control is not there). It was a top loading VCR and although we got other more modern VCRs, this one lasted until 1993.

That VCR had a remote control, but it came with a cord that you had to attach to the VCR before it could function.

Here is a picture of that exact type of remote control (second picture).

I made that remote my microphone.

In the early days of the VCR, our parents used to warn us about taking the cassettes out of the house.

Why?

It was a way thieves knew which houses had VCRs and target!

At a time, musical videos became popular on shows like those hosted by Olisa Adibua on NTA 2 Channel 5 (can't remember the name of the show now).

We would set our video tapes in the VCR machine so we could selectively record the songs we liked live.

We would replay them after.

This was a good way to learn the songs, dance moves, etc.

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by Mercury12(m): 8:48am On Apr 06

naptu2:
8 track tape

This is an 8 track tape. We called it cartridge. This is what we used before there were audio cassettes. Hi-fi systems had 8 track players and there were 8 track players in cars.

Agbawo. .... nah tape cassette i dey use to lol

Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by naptu2(op): 8:49am On Apr 06

johnie:
In the early days of the VCR, our parents used to warn us about taking the cassettes out of the house.

Why?

It was a way thieves knew which houses had VCRs and target!

At a time, musical videos became popular on shows like those hosted by Olisa Adibua on NTA 2 Channel 5 (can't remember the name of the show now).

We would set our video tapes in the VCR machine so we could selectively record the songs we liked live.

We would replay them after.

This was a good way to learn the songs, dance moves, etc.

Olisa Adibua - Top of the Pops.

I remember the day he wore a t-shirt (with no collar) and tie. I also remember the day that he was flinging viewers' letters.

The video clubs really helped with music videos from around 1985 onwards. We were members of Cosmo and VideoMart.

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Re: Things That Were In My Parlour In The 1970s And Early 1980s. by johnie: 8:53am On Apr 06

naptu2:
Hi-Fi

We also had a hi-fi system. It consisted of a record player (with the hook that allows you to stack records), a casette player and an 8 track tape player (cartridge). It also had a radio and I remember that the radio dial was iluminated with green light.

This (the photo below) is not the exact type of hi-fi system, but it is similar. Ours had the same kind of glass cover over the record player and cassette player. I think the 8-track tape player was more central.

There were little shelves at opposite ends of the sitting room and they were for the speakers for the audio system (I assume that it produced better stereo sound in those locations). The telephone was on a similar but lower shelf at another end of the sitting room.

I got to know the meaning of LP, EP, Side A & B and tracks through this.

These carried on to the audio cassettes.

Those coming across the term "track" today may not realise it came from the tracks (circular ridges on the discs.

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