As A Little Addition To This, Many Video Stores Would Have A Rewind Fee If You Forgot To Rewind VHS Tapes

as a little addition to this, many video stores would have a rewind fee if you forgot to rewind VHS tapes upon return. it was also a common job for those working in video rental to rewind tapes before putting them back on the shelf. this is why you didn't (usually) need to rewind your rented movies when you first watched them.

while I'm here I'll throw in a bit more 80s and 90s knowledge:

CRTs were common up until the creation of LCDs in the late 90s/early 2000s. CRTs take a few seconds to power on and the picture is darker until it has a chance to "warm up". CRTs aren't usually flat, curving in at the edges and corners (flat CRTs did exist in the late 80s but were expensive). they often emit a quiet hum and sometimes a high pitched tone (usually if there's something broken or misaligned inside). they can also have static electricity build up on the surface of the glass which raises the hairs on your hands. if you run your hand over this static and touch a doorknob, you could get an unpleasant shock.

dial-up internet was around since the early 80s but wasn't common in households until 1992, and was surpassed by broadband in the late 90s/early 2000s. your PC had to actually dial a phone number your internet provider gave you and the data would be transmitted through the phone line as audio which your PC's modem would decode. if someone used the phone to make a call it would harm the connection or disconnect you from the internet, so families typically had a reserved "computer time" when no one was allowed to use the phone.

before USB sticks, SD cards, and even CDs, old software was commonly installed with floppy disks. due to their small capacity a simple program might be sold on dozens of disks loaded into a floppy drive one at a time.

blowing air on game cartridges that weren't playing properly didn't usually do anything, mostly the act of removing and reinserting the cartridge does the trick, but it was still a common practice

game disks (such as from the PS1) that were scratched or played often would take longer to load over time. character and world geometry is typically smaller than audio tracks meaning they load faster. my copy of spyro 3 would load into the game before the audio had a chance to catch up, leading to music and dialog playing seconds later than expected or not at all.

I hope this info helps aspiring younger writers out there who want to write a story set in this period!

Younger writers. Please, just know that you could not skip to different songs on a cassette tape, that’s CDs. With tapes you pressed fast forward or rewind and prayed.

Also, VHS tapes did not have menu screens. Your only options were play, fast forward, rewind, pause, stop, or eject.

Y’all are making me feel like the crypt keeper here, I’m begging you 😭