The "glamour" of 1980s computer magazines

Ah, the 1980s! The decade of decadence. Suits with shoulder pads. Dance music workouts with Jane Fonda in leg-warmers. Home computers with rudimentary graphics and sound. *record scratch* Wait. Home computers? How do you make those beige plastic boxes with cassette recorders and televisions for monitors look glamorous? That was the challenge facing publishers of the many magazines that sprang up to entertain and inform the burgeoning mass of "home computer enthusiasts".

Thanks to the Internet Archive, we can take a dive back in to the heady days of early-1980s home computing magazines and explore the styles and, yes, glamour of the era.

First up, a category I'm calling Man and Machine. It's about as basic as you could get and consists of photos of men using, standing next to, or gazing contemplative at computers.

As you can see, beards were very much de rigueur for the discerning man about home computing town. It was also a very serious pursuit requiring a great deal of intellectual concentration. For some reason, it was also important to be well dressed. No casual clothing for these deep thinkers of the 80s computer revolution.

These sober and serious micro men gave off a bit of a vibe that, these days, might be seen as "gatekeeping". Some of the magazines took the opposite approach and went with the idea that these new-fangled computer thingies are "so easy, even a child could use one".

Home computers in the 1980s were sold on basically two premises. One was that they could help you with your family finances and the other was that they were "educational". The fact that 95% of them would end up being used just to play games was somewhat glossed over. Computers were going to be essential in the world of tomorrow and parents needed to invest in a one for the home or condemn their offspring to a life of drudgery. Probably working for bosses with computer skills, beards and seriously contemplative faces.