Author: theLogBook.com

Earl Green is the creator, curator, and head writer of theLogBook.com.

Jungle King

Jungle KingJapanese arcade game manufacturer Taito introduces its latest game, Jungle King, though the game will be known by that name for all of three months. A sampled “Tarzan yell” draws the legal wrath of the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, and Taito rushes to replace the loincloth-clad player character with a more covered-up, pith-helmeted explorer, retitling the game Jungle Hunt in the process. Read more

“The test flights are over”

President Reagan at STS-4 landingSpace Shuttle Columbia lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California, making its first-ever landing on a concrete runway. After greeting the returning astronauts and inspecting the shuttle, President Ronald Reagan – with the partially-dismantled prototype Enterprise as a backdrop – declares NASA’s Space Shuttle system fully operational, saying “the test flights are over.” Columbia Commander Ken Mattingly later reveals that there was tremendous pressure on NASA to land Columbia on Independence Day, regardless of how many mission objectives had been met, to maximize the publicity value of the President’s speech. But the quick turnaround time and almost-weekly flight schedule that NASA had publicized throughout the 1970s is already a pipe dream: post-mission the four missions flown so far prove that post-landing servicing of each orbiter takes longer than expected. Columbia won’t fly again until the first “operational” mission in November.

Tron

TronDisney’s Tron – the first movie to pay homage to the ’80s video game craze and the first movie to arrive with video game tie-ins already in the works – premieres in theaters. Starring Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges, the film establishes of the most distinctive visual idea of the decade, that of a person being “sucked into” the digital world, where glowing body armor is worn. Read more Hear about it on the Sci-Fi 5 podcast

Landsat 4

LandsatNASA launches Landsat 4, the fourth Landsat Earth resource observation satellite and the first to be redesigned from the ground up (previous Landsats had been based on NASA’s Nimbus satellites from the 1960s and ’70s). For the first time, Landsat data processing and distribution is handled by another government agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, which partners with NASA on all future Landsat satellites. Landsat 4 is the first Landsat to link up to NASA’s TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite) system, thus enabling real-time data transmission to Earth even when Landsat 4 isn’t passing over a ground station. Landsat 4 remains operational through the end of 1993.

Math Gran Prix (Atari 2600)

Math Gran PrixAtari releases its “edutainment” cartridge Math Gran Prix for the Atari VCS, a title designed to stave off critics of video games’ negative effects on kids’ schoolwork. Perhaps predictably, Math Gran Prix fails to cross the retail finish line – the same parents complaining that the Atari is keeping homework from getting done aren’t buying educational games for it. Read more

Colecovision

ColecovisionThe video game wars officially enter a new generation of hardware as Connecticut-based toymaker Coleco unveils the Colecovision home video game system. Packaged with an almost-but-not-quite-arcade-accurate port of the hit game Donkey Kong, and pushed by an advertising campaign focusing on the message of “bringing the arcade experience home,” Colecovision’s best opening gambit may be an “Expansion Module” allowing the use of Atari VCS games on the console, making it possible for Atari owners to step up without having to rebuild their game libraries from scratch. Read more

Soyuz T-7

Soyuz T-7The Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-7 mission lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome for a week-long stay in space, including a visit to space station Salyut 7. The three-person Soyuz crew includes the first woman in space since 1963. Cosmonauts Leonid Popov, Aleksandr Serebrov and Svetlana Savitskaya deliver supplies to Salyut 7 and perform experiments while docked to the station; on August 27th, they depart from the station aboard the Soyuz T-5 vehicle, leaving the newer T-7 capsule for the station crew’s use.

Pitfall! (Atari 2600)

Atari 2600Activision releases the Pitfall! cartridge for the Atari VCS home video game system. Subtitled “The Adventure of Pitfall Harry” (implying that further adventures are yet to come), this becomes one of the Atari VCS’ “killer app” games, and is ported to other systems and updated for more modern platforms for decades to come. Read more