This English summary is based on the following article, originally published in Finnish: Reunanen, Markku, Petri Saarikoski, and Tapani Joelsson. 2025. “‘Kaverien kanssa ruvettiin harrastamaan ATK:ta’ – Tietokoneiden tulo 1980-luvun suomalaisiin koteihin.” Kulttuurintutkimus 42 (1): 19–38. https://journal.fi/kulttuurintutkimus/article/view/143267

---

In this blog post we discuss how home computers arrived at Finnish homes in the 1980s based on an online survey conducted in 2022. We received 350 answers in total from a diverse group of respondents all over Finland, coupled with contemporary photos of the devices in their real environments. The survey was designed and the results analyzed using the common quadripartite domestication model – appropriation, objectification, incorporation and conversion – as presented by Silverstone, Hirsch and Morley (1992).

Finnish home computing has been studied before from multiple angles, yet we still managed to provide new findings by studying the computer as a physical object and by taking a close look at the acquisition process: why would you need one? How was the purchase negotiated? Who bought the computer and where? Existing research has tended to focus on active users, but we also consider non-users, i.e. parents and siblings who did not find the gadget interesting for one reason or another.

Before heading for the store, there had often been a long negotiation, where various factors and players were involved. In the big picture, the 1980s were a relatively wealthy period in Finland, so households had money at their disposal. On the other hand, a complete home computer set could easily cost the monthly net salary of an average worker, so it was not a small purchase. As revealed by the answers, public discourse on the upcoming information society affected households, too, and provided extra motivation for the purchase – children would need to be prepared for the future job market by learning the necessary skills.

In some occasions even the children would use such arguments for furthering their cause, even if their underlying motivation was more likely gaming. As another means they also resorted to downright whining, which worked at least in some cases. In the 1980s there were specialized home computer stores only in the few largest cities, but the machines were also available through other channels, such as bookstores and home appliance resellers. The Info bookstore chain was a particularly popular choice, as it represented the most successful brands of the time and its stores reached almost every part of the country.

When considering the placement of the computer at home, two spaces stand out: the living room and the children’s room. As most home computers used a normal television set as their display, it was natural to place the machine in the living room. This decision, however, created a conflict of interest, as the TV was also needed for watching news, series and other programs. Many families solved the issue by getting a dedicated smaller TV, which was placed in the kids’ room. As can be seen in the photos, ergonomy was not yet a thing, and the TV often ended up wherever it happened to fit. Another similar crossover with home electronics was the use of a tape recorder for mass storage.

One aspect that is easy to overlook in a study like this is that the computer needs plenty of supporting hardware from disk drives to printers and from game controllers to power supplies. Therefore, the main unit cannot be considered in isolation, but we are rather talking about a large collection of items that together form the “home computer”. In line with the domestication theory, some of the objects, such as digital games, are immaterial by nature. Some of the artifacts are not digital either: books, game manuals, notebooks and posters were also part of the lot.

Gaming was clearly the number one use for home computers in spite of parents’ wishes or advertisers’ promises. Swapping games – very often as pirate copies – with others was an important part of the hobby, and these social networks could reach even across borders. At times the owners of marginal computers felt left out, as there was little entertainment available for their machines. In addition to games also programming, BASIC in particular, was quite common, even if most users would not advance beyond beginner skills.

The results of the study paint a picture of a distinctively male hobby, which is in line with the history of computing in general. Even if many women already used computers for office work, mothers did not generally show much interest toward the home computer. Dads and daughters were, likewise, largely bystanders that may have participated in the hobby sporadically: sons would assume an almost total control of the machine, a setting which was also strengthened by placing it in the kids’ room. The situation started changing only in the 1990s when a more gender-balanced culture of use emerged due to the popularity of productivity software.

For us researchers, children of the same age, this study was, on the one hand, a trip down the memory lane back to the world of CRT TV screens and slowly loading games off tapes. On the other hand, new and unexpected perspectives emerged from the research material, illustrating how different the participants and processes were. Even if the home computer could be treated as only an example of domestic technology, such perspective would not do it full justice: all of a sudden tens of thousands Finnish homes owned a real computer, which facilitated the birth of a lively digital culture and gave new direction to the lives of many.

References

Silverstone, Roger, Eric Hirsch, and David Morley, David. 1992. “Information and Communication Technologies and the Moral Economy of the Household.” In Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces, edited by Roger Silverstone and Eric Hirsch, 15–31. Routledge.

---

Author bios and contact