17 photos taking you back to Edinburgh in 1980 (Part 1)

The new decade was ushered in with a bang in January as the last remnants of Portobello Power Station were cleared by controlled explosion. New technologies were being introduced. The first payphones with numbers that you pressed were replacing the old dial system. Students at the new Wester Hailes Education Centre (WHEC) were introduced to the latest Apple computers and Edinburgh said goodbye to its last two-man operated double decker buses. The city’s Shandwick Place became the first place in Britain to install a ‘talking’ pedestrian crossing intended as an aid for blind people, while a new interactive videotex system, Prestel, was being promoted in the Capital by British Telecom. A kind of forerunner of today’s internet, it allowed users access to all manner of information services from the comfort of their own homes. It’ll never catch on… More to follow in Part 2 next week.