1982

J. Geils Dead at 71

J. Geils, the guitarist and leader of the J. Geils Band, has died according to reports from WCVB TV Boston. John Warren Geils, Jr. was reportedly found dead at his home in Groton, Massachusetts.

The local police department advise that foul play is not suspected at this time.

Geils formed the J. Geils Band in 1967 believe it or not! Their debut self-titled album was released by Atlantic Records in 1970.

They released a total of 11 studio albums, including their 1982 chart-topper “Freeze-Frame”. That album also included their biggest single “Centerfold,” which spent six weeks at No. 1.

The band broke up in 1985, though they reunited off and on throughout the years but Geils left the band for good in 2012.

RIP

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Casio PB-100

Computing power was not cheap in the 1980’s. And this was also the time where things started to shrink in size. The PB100 was a one of those computers that had awesome power  – read on to see how much!

Released in 1982, I bought my PB100 in 1983 and immediately started to program it in BASIC. The raw power of this computer that was the size of a calculator was pretty impressive  – for it’s time.

Casio-PB100

 

It came with 1KB (NOT a typo) of RAM which resulted in only 544 bytes for BASIC, which was really limiting, even in 1983.
There was a memory module called the OR-1 (sad that I remember) that upgraded it to 1568 bytes of user memory. This allowed for many BASIC programs to be written. There are 10 area – P) to P9 where you would store your programs.

Courtesy of Google , the main circuits of the PB-100 were made up of two chips. Processor logics, ROM, display driver, and keyboard controller were integrated in a single CMOS VLSI chip HD61913, which had an external 4-bit bus. The second main component was a HD61914, which is a 8192-bit static RAM organized as 2048 words by 4 bits.

What accessories were available? Well, you could get a cassette interface  (for storage, but I have not idea how it would of worked), plus there was also a thermal printer available for it. I never actually saw what these printers looked like or knew anyone that had one.

The PB100 was fairly cheap to run – 2 X CR2032 button cells powered the unit.

Did you have one? What did you you do with it? Leave a comment below.

 

 

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867-5309

If you grew up in the 80s, you know exactly what this post is about.

867-5309/Jenny” was a song written by Alex Call and Jim Keller and performed by Tommy Tutone. Released in 1981, it did reach #1 on the US billboard charts in 1982, I think due to it’s very catchy chorus.

This song is about a guy who gets Jenny’s number off the bathroom wall. He can’t work up the courage to call her, but thinks he can have her if he ever does. Was the number and Jenny real?

Well, songwriter Alex Call came up with it while sitting under a plum tree. He said “Despite all the mythology to the contrary, I actually just came up with the ‘Jenny’ and the telephone number, and the music just sitting in my backyard. There was no Jenny”

I think it’s fair to say the number 867-5309 has reached a cult status. There are so many stories of people prank calling that number (as it is a valid number is many US states), the number has been used by many famous people and it has appeared in many other facets of life.

* Lets go a bit further into some trivia around this song:

* Tommy Tutone was actually the name of the band, not a singer

* A guy in New York tried to sell his 212-867-5309 number on eBay

* 867-5309 grosses more royalties today than it did when the song was climbing the charts in 1982

* Arnold Schwarzenegger put it on his Workout with Arnold

* Family Guy referenced the song

* Keith Urban sings 867-5309 at his live shows.

* In 1999, Brown University put in a campus exchange of “867.” The number 867-5309 went to 2 freshman girls, who got about 5 prank calls a day.

* 867-5309 has been referenced in several video game Easter eggs, including Duke Nukem, Everquest, and Deus Ex.

* 8675309 is a prime number. The chances of choosing a random 7-digit (telephone) number and finding that it is prime is about 13 out of 200 (about 6.5%).

Many women have used the fictional Jenny’s telephone digits to brush off unwanted male attention. More than one guy has gotten a girl’s phone number, only to discover it is 867-5309 🙂 . I would love to see how many times this has occurred.

Finally, here’s the song played live:

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Check out this site for an interview with the girl in the Jenny music video. Her name was Karen Morton, who sadly passed away on 2/11/14.

How much of that trivia did you know? Do you have any more that I can add to the above list? Leave a comment below

 

 

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Culture Club to reunite in 2012

Boy George has confirmed that Culture Club will reunite in 2012, and will do so with a world wide tour. This is great news for fans of this ‘new wave’ (?) group of the 80s.

Why next year? A couple of reasons – George is touring solo this year on his ‘Here and Now’ tour to promote his new album, and next year marks their 30 year anniversary as well as 10 years since their last reformation.

In 1981, Boy George occasionally sang with the group Bow Wow Wow under the stage name “Lieutenant Lush”. But after this formed his own band with ‘Kissing to be Clever’ their first album release.

Culture Club are probably best known for singles from their second album in 1983 (Colour by Numbers), namely ‘Church of the Poison Mind’ and ‘Karma Chameleon’.

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