All the kids are gone bananas about computers. There’s approximately 1,000 Commodore 64s in Irish schools. In 1983.
Gay Byrne on the Late Late Toy Show in 1983 interviewed nine year old Oric whizz kid, Mark Feldman who has been playing games since he was six, and thirteen year old Johnson McEvoy who does programming and games and creates graphics.
Nice demo of the Commodore 64, playing some sort of typing tutor game too! I had no idea the C64 was ever on the Late Late Show!
Like most Irish people my age and older I was shocked to hear about the death of Gay Byrne today. He was ever present in Irish daily life as he presented a daily radio show and a talk show on Friday evenings.
If you’re not yet 40 or not familiar with Gaybo because you haven’t lived here, @PantiBliss explained how big an influence he had on Ireland in this tweet.
The #RIPGaybo hashtag on Twitter and in part Irish Twitter is a place of mourning today.
If you watched Stephen Fry on God then you’ve watched Gay in action. Over 8m people have watched this video!
Stephen himself tweeted today about Gay, with this message sent to one of our national radio stations:
RTÉ published this post about Gay featuring lots of the “finest moments” from the Late Late Show. I couldn’t watch many of them for some reason but maybe you can. They don’t load in Firefox for me, even when I try to load them directly. I do remember Boyzone’s first public appearance on the Late Late. Can’t believe that was in 1993!
Every December The Late Late Show has a toy show episode. Here’s one with Zig & Zag & Dustin from 1992. I have to admit I never saw this clip but it made me laugh!
RIP Gay.