Tag Archives: South Africa

Panoramio: To boldly go where no Google car has gone before

Panoramio was a geo-located tagging photo sharing site whose goal was to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by viewing the photos that other users had taken at that location. It was sometime around 2008 that I signed up, and Panoramio soon became my new home for (retroactively) geotagged digital photos of mostly Johannesburg (my previous geographic home) as well as any other places we visited. Continue reading

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The fall of walls

It was thirty years ago today that the Berlin Wall fell. The Iron Curtain had been breached, the Eastern Bloc was beginning to crumble. This most cruel of social experiments had finally run its course. A peaceful revolution was under way, and there was no stopping this tide from turning. The world was evolving. Even in a country as far away as South Africa, the developments made headlines. Continue reading

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A concert in the park

It was 32 years ago today that I was here: The Concert In The Park. No, not the Simon & Garfunkel one — this one was held at the Ellis Park Rugby Stadium in Johannesburg on the 12th of January 1985. It was an event of a previously unheard-of scale. Continue reading

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Remembering the Mini Cine One

If you wanted to see a movie you would go to a cinema. Early-eighties Johannesburg offered several, and many were well within walking distance or along the bus route back after school. One of these was the Mini Cine One in Hillbrow. Continue reading

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Best-of-the-year radio charts

Like most teenagers of the eighties, I grew up with one ear permanently stuck to the radio. It became customary for Radio 5 and Radio 702 to count down the greatest singles of the year, and I did my darndest to wake up early and write it all down! Continue reading

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Revisiting the SA BBS Scene

Nor has anyone else been willing to commit their full and sordid BBS stories. It’s as if, for some people, the BBS period is a chapter they would rather forget about. Continue reading

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The Computer Faire & BEXA

While not nearly in the same league as its overseas counterparts, COMDEX, CeBIT, CES or IFA, the annual “Computer Faire” was a key South African exhibition for those interested in IT/computer technology and office automation. It was the largest event of its kind in the southern hemisphere. This page showcases their most interesting and historically relevant content. Continue reading

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Remembering the Inner Sleeve Record Library

The Inner Sleeve Record Library was exactly that: not a library where one would get books, but one where you could borrow records. Vinyl records. This was the mother lode! Continue reading

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