80s on Locodigital

The Terminator (1984): what the film got right about AI

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0300

The first time I watched The Terminator, what stuck was the leather-jacketed robot and the line everybody imitates. Rewatching it now, the scene that weighs the most is the quietest one: the T-800 phones a house, imitates Sarah Connor's mother's voice and finds out where she is. In 1984 it was a plot device. In 2026 it is a scam with a name, a price tag and victims.

The film in a few lines

The film opened in the United States on October 26, 1984, directed by James Cameron, who wrote it with Gale Anne Hurd. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the T-800, a cyborg sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), and Michael Biehn is Kyle Reese, the soldier who follows it back to protect her. It was a cheap production, around six million dollars, and it earned tens of millions at the box office, which paid for the whole franchise. Cameron often says the idea came from a dream of a metal skeleton rising out of a fire.

WarGames (1983): the film that made Reagan ask about hackers

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 09:00:00 -0300

In June 1983, the President of the United States watched a movie about a teenager who nearly starts World War III over the phone. A few days later, in a White House meeting about missiles and arms control, he put his notes aside and asked whether anyone in the room had seen it. That question led to a presidential directive on computer security and, three years later, the first US federal law against breaking into computer systems.

Super Mario Bros. turns 41: the level that saved gaming

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 10:00:00 -0300

Forty-one years ago, on 13 September 1985, a black screen lit up on the Famicom with the words "SUPER MARIO BROS." and changed everything. Nintendo had had the console on the Japanese market since 1983, but it was missing the game that would make the whole thing make sense. That day, it arrived.

What almost nobody imagined was that this 256 KB cartridge would save the entire video game industry.

Tetris at 42: the story of the puzzle you can't put down

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 09:00:00 -0300

There's a line of pieces falling far too slowly while you try to decide where to fit them. Two blocks that need to go left, but the hole waiting for them is on the wrong side. The nearly complete line sits there, mocking you, until the right piece appears and the whole thing vanishes at once — and a moment later you're already looking at the next piece and you've forgotten clocks exist.

Dragon Quest at 40: the RPG that stopped Japan

Sat, 23 May 2026 10:00:00 -0300

The Japanese government went so far as to ask that future releases in the series happen only at weekends. Not because the content was inappropriate — but because children were skipping school and adults were walking out of work to buy the cartridge on launch day. If you need a metric for a video game's cultural impact, that one is hard to beat.

On 27 May 1986, Enix released Dragon Quest for the Japanese Famicom. Forty years on — exactly four days from this Saturday — the franchise has racked up more than 97 million units sold, 11 mainline titles, and has just entered the World Video Game Hall of Fame. But what made this modest 1986 RPG shape an entire genre?

The Empire Strikes Back at 46: the film that changed Star Wars

Thu, 21 May 2026 09:00:00 -0300

On 21 May 1980, The Empire Strikes Back opened in 126 screens across the United States. Not two thousand, the way blockbuster sequels do today — 126, a deliberately small number designed to manufacture scarcity and queues. It worked: the per-screen average on opening day was over $10,000. That Memorial Day weekend became legend. And the sequel nobody was sure would work became, decades later, the near-universal consensus pick for the best Star Wars ever made.

37 years of the pocket phone: are you freer or more trapped?

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0300

Today, 25 April 2026, the first genuinely portable mobile phone in history turns 37. In 1989, Motorola launched the MicroTAC 9800X — a handset of a little over 300 grams that fitted in a jacket pocket and cost between $2,495 and $3,495. It was the future arriving in the shape of an elegant brick. And it makes me wonder: what exactly did that revolution bring us? Freedom, or a state-of-the-art leash?

Stranger Things: Tales From '85 — Hawkins Is Back, Now Animated

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:00:00 -0300

When word got out that Stranger Things was getting an animated series, my first reaction was scepticism. The original show is famous precisely for that heavy atmosphere, for scares that work because you're watching flesh-and-blood people genuinely suffering. How was an animated version supposed to capture that?

Then the trailer dropped. And I got it.

What Stranger Things: Tales From '85 Actually Is

Tales From '85 is an animated spin-off that premieres today, 23 April, on Netflix — with all 10 episodes available at once, the way the platform likes it. Produced by the Duffer Brothers themselves (the creators of Stranger Things) alongside Flying Bark Productions, the series makes a bold choice: instead of copying the live-action show's heavy visual tone, it dives headfirst into the aesthetic of 1980s Saturday-morning cartoons.