Back to the 1980s - Innovations

Today let’s talk about innovations.

Earlier decades focused on inventing technology at scale.

In the 1950s and 60s, big, centralized breakthroughs like the Space Race, nuclear power, mainframe computers, and early television belonged to governments, universities, and large corporations.

The 1970s laid the groundwork: microprocessors, early personal computers, videotapes, and calculators, promising prototypes, but still not quite everyday objects.

The 1980s were different. Innovation moved out of labs and into homes, schools, and offices. Progress felt fast and visible: machines got smaller, cheaper, and easier to use. Technology stopped being abstract and became something you interacted with daily.

IBM brought personal computers into offices. Xerox pioneered the first practical fax machines , but the fax machines most people remember from the 1980s, printing on curled-up thermal paper, became widespread once Japanese electronics companies made them smaller, cheaper, and affordable for everyday office use.

I remember my first real encounter with fax technology at my very first temporary office job. Typically, my supervisor would phone our coordinator in Hong Kong, who would then deal with Chinese manufacturers on our behalf. Quotes came back by fax, and it was my job to calculate margins and quantities from those fuzzy sheets of paper. Once approved, I’d compile the order and fax it back. I think her name was Cherie.
I found it incredibly impressive. Real-time communication between countries, across oceans and time zones, all happening on a noisy little machine next to my desk.

As for computers, you’ll all recall the small terminals with the orange or green blinking caret, the older brother of today’s cursor, silently demanding that you knew exactly what you were doing. It would take another 10 to 15 years before Microsoft gave us computer mice and, with them, the freedom to move around the screen without navigating for minutes using the tab key.

Speaking of keys: at that same job, I was the baby of the department, and my colleagues loved pulling pranks. One day, while I was away from my desk, they swapped the keys on my numeric keypad. That day, I produced nothing but errors. I deleted everything and tried again. Same result. Only when I deliberately watched my fingers did I realize what they’d done, accompanied by uncontrollable snickering from the next desks. Ugh. They got me.

Innovation in the 1980s didn’t stop at office desks; it reached space, too.

After the Moon landing in 1969, space travel shifted from heroic one-off missions to something more routine. The idea was bold: a reusable spacecraft that could fly again and again. In 1981, Space Shuttle Columbia launched, and suddenly spaceflight felt less like science fiction and more like an ongoing project.

By the mid-80s, shuttle launches were regular enough to be televised live, watched in classrooms and living rooms. Space felt closer, almost familiar. That illusion shattered in January 1986, when Challenger broke apart just 73 seconds after liftoff. Among the seven astronauts was Christa McAuliffe, a teacher millions of children had been excited to watch.

It was a collective shock. Innovation had felt unstoppable, until it suddenly wasn’t. 

Sadly it wasn’t just NASA that reminded us of the cost and limitations of innovation. In April 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union suffered a catastrophic meltdown. The disaster released radioactive material across Europe, forcing evacuations and leaving a lasting imprint on public consciousness. Like Challenger, it was a stark reminder that even the most advanced technology can fail, with consequences far beyond the lab or launch pad.

But the 1980s weren’t all disasters and fear. For most of us, these were distant events; news stories on TV, not our daily reality. Life went on, offices continued faxing, computers continued blinking, and kids kept dreaming of becoming astronauts. 

Imagine you're transported back to the 1980s, and someone tells you that in 2026, you and almost everyone else on Earth will have a wireless smartphone with unlimited possibilities and incredible apps, a device that lets you work, play, learn, and connect with the world in ways you’d never even dreamed. Would you believe them?