I got love for you if you were born in the Eighties. The Sullivan-Barnes family leave the dark days of the Seventies behind and enter the positively sparkling Eighties, a decade which promised so much but delivered on so little, and find that technology begins to take hold of their lives. This was the decade of the yuppie (Wikipedia: short for “young urban professional” or “young upwardly-mobile professional” or “stuck up twat” – okay, I added that last part) and the act of showing off new technology was held in higher regard than saving a baby from a burning building. Maggie Thatcher hated all people.

With arms folded a moody Adam fails miserably at stamping his claim on the household technology as Georgie and the kids surround the “new” stereo system. “I am absolutely convinced that the man of the house would have gone out and bought himself a decent Hi-Fi” moans Adam who adds “the children of the house would not have been allowed near this type of Hi-Fi kit”. Georgie responds with “Adam, I would be” and Adam takes a chance with “you might be” but a stern “no I would be” has Adam retreating back into his shell with “yeah, you would be”. Well done, Adam. Chuck Norris will be proud.

The Sony Walkman was a big talking (and walking) point in the Eighties and Adam is much happier to have music in his ears as he goes for his daily run. Pretty much all health warnings from the Eighties, apart from that one about HIV, are now considered hilarious and fears surrounding the Microwave are no exception. You may think the notion of death-dealing Microwaves would be confined to science fiction comics of the Fifties but apparently many “experts” believed that since the appliance has the capacity to cook food it can also cook a human being. Given that Microwaves tend to be around 1ft tall I can only assume those “experts” were concerned for the well-being of pixies.

I have a lot of love for computers and consoles and like to think, while not claiming to be an expert, I know a thing or two about this particular area of technology. I know, for example, that the ZX Spectrum was a better (more rounded) computer than the BBC Micro, especially when it came to playing games. The family were treated to a presentation of both systems, with Simon Munnery vouching for the Spectrum and Patrick Bossert representing the BBC Micro, and then had to decide which computer to take home with them. Munnery accurately described the BBC Micro as having the stench of school and showed the games capabilities of the ZX but apparently all reason went out the window as Bossert blew the family away with his mediocre programming skills. The family unanimously voted for the BBC Micro. Insanity prevails.

Adam and Hamish could hardly contain their excitement at having the computer. Back at the house, Adam called the Tech team to ask for a monitor, ignoring the RF cable which came with the system, and was told he could plug it into a TV. The boys hooked everything up, made themselves comfortable, and…did absolutely nothing. In fact it took the combined wits of Adam and Hamish a grand total of five days to load a single game on their chosen computer only for them to realise the games were crap.

The highlight of the episode is when Gia meets her hero Sir Clive Sinclair to discuss the huge impact his pocket calculators had on the world. With a huge smile on Gia’s face it is easy to tell this was a happy moment in her life and she almost looked like a giddy schoolgirl in awe of her teacher. Gia. Schoolgirl uniform. Okay…let’s move along. It was really nice to hear from the great man Sir Clive on what was a hugely significant period in his entrepreneurial career.

If I had to choose a decade which I consider to be “my decade” it would have to be the Eighties. I soaked up so much of what this decade had to offer as far as films, music, and computers are concerned and those things significantly shaped who I am today. This interesting episode shows the Eighties as a time of advancements which were brilliant in theory but poor in execution and this paved the way for the technological bombardment of the Nineties.

You can watch ‘Episode 2: The Eighties’ tonight at 9pm (Tuesday 6^th October) on BBC4. Those who miss the episode can catch it on BBC iPlayer.

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• Review: Micro Men (TV – BBC4)
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• Review: Electric Dreams – The Seventies (TV – BBC4)
• BBC4 Docu-Comedy ‘Syntax Era’ Tells Tale Of 1980s British Computing
• Retro Computing Corner: The 1980s British Invasion