The seventh album from Split Enz, Time + Tide, is released to a strong start, going gold within two weeks in Australia alone. With most of the songs written by Tim Finn, the album is surprisingly autobiographical. The album’s lead single, the sea-shanty-styled “Six Months In A Leaky Boat”, is chased off the airwaves by radio program directors when it’s interpreted as a commentary on the Falkland Islands War (despite the fact that the song was written and recorded months before the conflict ever took place).
ABC airs the 29th episode of Stephen J. Cannell’s superhero comedy series The Greatest American Hero, starring William Katt, Connie Sellecca, and Robert Culp. Barbara Hale (Perry Mason) guest stars.
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The Soviet Union launches the last of the Salyut space stations, Salyut 7, into Earth orbit. Reflecting an ongoing significant rethink on space station construction, Salyut 7 is intended from the outset to be docked with additional modules to expand its habitable and working space. It also sets a new endurance record of its own, remaining in orbit for nearly a decade.
ITV airs the 52nd episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Toyah Wilcox guest stars in the fifth season finale, which is adapted from the winning story in an amateur writing contest in which it was up against 11,000 other entries.
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Better known for making jukeboxes and speakers, Rock-Ola makes one of its final attempts to break into the video game industry by releasing Eyes, a maze chase game created by Florida-based Digitrex Techstar. Since many arcades are already flooded with maze games, Eyes seems to disappear from most arcades in a blink; this is one of Rock-Ola’s final attempts to get into the game business.
ABC airs the 30th episode of Stephen J. Cannell’s superhero comedy series The Greatest American Hero, starring William Katt, Connie Sellecca, and Robert Culp. Dixie Carter (Designing Women) and Gay Rowan (The Starlost) guest star in the second season finale.
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ITV airs the 53rd episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Dorothy Tutin guest stars.
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ITV airs the 54th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. John Mills guest stars.
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Capitol Records releases the second Duran Duran album, Rio, featuring the singles “Rio”, “Hungry Like The Wolf”, “Save A Prayer” and “My Own Way”.
Soyuz T-5 lifts off from the Soviet Union, carrying its crew of two to the new Salyut 7 space station for a long-term stay. Cosmonauts Anatoli Berezovoy and Valentin Lebedev become Salyut 7’s first occupants, remaining aboard the station for a record-setting 211 days (almost seven months), not returning until December 1982. During that time, the two cosmonauts host two other visiting crews and launch a small amateur radio communications satellite by ejecting it from a small airlock.
ITV airs the 55th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Leslie Carton guest stars.
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ITV airs the 56th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Derek Jacobi and Jennifer Connelly guest star.
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Activision releases the Chopper Command cartridge for the Atari VCS home video game system. Inspired by the arcade game Defender, complete with a “radar view” of areas of the playfield extending beyond the edges of the screen, Chopper Command proves to be graphically superior to Atari’s own home version of that game.
ITV airs the 57th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Fulton McKay guest stars.
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Exidy’s utterly bizarre coin-op video game Pepper II arrives in arcades, and players are given the task of guiding an angelic being on his mission to zip up a maze made of zippers while pursued by little devils. While trying to figure out if any of it makes sense, the industry spends far too much time coining phrases like “wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper II?”
The Soviet Union launches a scaled-down test model of a compact space shuttle design into orbit, part of an ultimately abandoned study of a vehicle design called Spiral. The BOR4 structural test article is photographed being recovered from the Indian Ocean by the Australian government, revealing the design to the western world for the first time. NASA begins a study of the BOR4 lifting body design, finding that it has a stable flight profile and unusually good reentry and landing characteristics, and though NASA’s version of the vehicle, HL20, is later mooted as a shuttle replacement, both countries’ space agencies pass on the design, which will later be revived by Sierra Nevada Corporation as the Dream Chaser. BOR4 is launched three more times through 1984, at which point the Soviets instead press ahead with development of Buran, a near-exact copy of the American Space Shuttle.
Produced and co-written by Harve Bennett (The Six Million Dollar Man, The Invisible Man) and directed by Nicholas Meyer, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan debuts in theaters. The story follows up on the first season TV episode Space Seed, bringing back Ricardo Montalban (who is now a star thanks to his stint on ABC’s Fantasy Island) as Khan and introducing Kirstie Alley as a new member of the Enterprise crew. With faster pacing, increased action, and a more contemporary military sci-fi feel, the sequel is a hit that guarantees future sequels, as well as gradually increasing interest on Paramount’s part to return the franchise to television years later.
Imagic, recently formed from another wave of ex-Atari employees, releases its second wave of game cartridges for the Atari VCS, including Atlantis, Cosmic Ark, Fire Fighter and the adventure game Riddle Of The Sphinx.
ITV airs the 58th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Susan Penhaligon guest stars.
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Capitol Records releases the 12th album by The Steve Miller Band, Abracadabra, featuring the singles “Abracadabra” and “Cool Magic”.
Williams Electronics unleashes an arcade favorite in the making, Moon Patrol. A rare case of a foreign game (originated in Japan by IREM) licensed for American distribution by Williams, Moon Patrol forces prospective moon buggy drivers to make split-second decisions about whether to shoot oncoming obstacles or vault over them in the moon’s low gravity. The game’s colorful graphics and inordinately jaunty music make it an instant hit.
Its primary mission satisfactorily completed, the NASA/ESA ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer 3) satellite has a surplus of maneuvering fuel left over, and is given a new mission: it begins a series of over a dozen maneuvers utilizing both thrusters and gravity-assists, intended to push it out of its LaGrange point between Earth and the sun and toward a 1985 rendezvous with Comet Giacobinni-Zinner. Upon its final maneuver in 1983, ISEE-3 will be renamed ICE (International Cometary Explorer) and, after the complex series of course changes, will be perfectly targeted for its 1985 comet encounter.
Konami introduces the arcade game Tutankham in the United States through licensee Stern. A running firefight through a maze, Tutankham tasks players on a deadly treasure hunting mission with a rarity for an arcade game – a definite end goal.
ITV airs the 59th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Jennie Linden (Dr. Who and the Daleks) guest stars.
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ITV airs the 60th episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Keith Barron guest stars.
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