16 Gaming Struggles From The '80s Today's Kids Won't Understand

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1. First thing's first — this is what your squad looked like:

Andreas Pizsa (CC BY 2.0) / Via Flickr: butterseite

Computer Club rolled deep.

2. Oh, you wanna play a game? Just load it from a cassette — no, really, a CASSETTE.

Francisco José Gallego Durán (CC BY 3.0) / Via youtube.com

Which took up to 30 minutes.

3. Disappointment was knowing you'd probably never wear one of these:

Universal Home Video / Via kellymagovern.tumblr.com

It was so bad too!

4. You had to actually leave the house to play the latest titles at the arcade...

Yutaka Seki (CC BY 3.0) / Via Flickr: yutakaseki

Lest we forget. 😔

5. ...where you'd patiently wait your turn for a cabinet to open up...

Photo courtesy of Orange County Archives / Via Flickr: ocarchives

Rivalries were fierce.

6. ...only to lose your hard-earned quarters without ever entering your initials.

MonsterFeetTV (CC BY 3.0) / Via youtube.com

**Hard-allowanced quarters.

7. Meanwhile, handhelds were either unwieldy bricks...

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Ones that couldn't fit in your pocket.

8. ...or cheap, little LCD screens with crude animation.

Via vgjunk.tumblr.com

There were so many of them.

9. You definitely had a birthday party at a pizza place, where this guy serenaded you to nightmare land...

Via stevenspielbergo.tumblr.com

Ha ha ha.

10. ...and a fat stack of arcade tickets earned approximately one eraser.

Via funnyjunk.com

And maybe a key chain.

11. The video game crash of '83 — that happened.

-Maik- (CC BY 2.0) / Via Flickr: chainreactionmedia

Game over, man.

12. And, well...this came out:

William Hunter (CC BY 3.0) / Via youtube.com

Some things are better left buried.

13. If you got stuck, you had to call expensive 1-900 numbers for hints and cheat codes...

Creative Communications Group / Via peteneems.com

BRB, literally dying in World 8-3.

14. ...but somehow, tilting a pinball machine was still considered cheating.

Courtesy of Justin Schroepfer / Via vimeo.com

Totally bogus.

15. People thought this was a pretty good controller:

MrVenom1974 (CC BY 3.0) / Via youtube.com

Who needs a joystick when you have a numeric keypad?

16. Finally, nothing was more heart-racing than fishing for tokens while this screen counted down:

Ultimate Rayden (CC BY 3.0) / Via youtube.com

The fever was real.

Oh, and speaking of '80s countdowns... 😉

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