Portable Cassette Newspaper Ads!

This is where they were, although the building looks a bit too new too me so is probably a replacement

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2...4!1sQ50SGDPbHSU8mT7_bZD-5w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Quite appropriate that it is now a charity shop where you are likely to find discarded 80s gadgets.

Of course with Cambridge being a University town and home of Sinclair and Acorn/Arm it isn't surprising that there was a ready market for gadgets. On Streetview I found a Music Technology shop just up the road. I am not aware that Tempus ever had any other shops and by the mid eighties they stopped advertisng, probably when things like Casio watches became more mainstream in places like Argos.

Regarding the Space Invaders watch, a friend of mine at work (back in the 80s), who thought his overdraft limit was a target to be aimed at, bought one when they came out. He also bought a Casio CT405 keyboard followed by a Roland Juno 6, and a 3 litre Ford Capri. I bought a house years before him though.

 

Hobby Electronics was a beginners / hobbyist magazine from the same team as Electronics Today International
Where an ETI project would typically have dozens of ICs a Hobby electronics project would have three or four/
I did build a Guitar phaser to one of their simple designs and it worked very well.

In the UK the late 1970s, early 1980s were peak for electronics magazines.
In about 1980 you had a choice of

1. ETI (Electronics Today International) - Complex projects but not too serious. They often had pretty girls on the cover demonstrating that months main project
2. Hobby Electronics - from the same publisher as ETI but aimed at beginners
   
   
3. Practical Wireless - which despite the name covered many audio projects.
4. Practical Electronics - The first time I ever read about microprocessors was in the school libraries copy
5. Everyday Electronics - from the same publisher as the Practicals but aimed at beginners
   
   
6. Radio and Electronics Constructor. - Similar to the Practicals but from a different publisher
   
   
7. Electronics and Music Maker - Published by Maplin for a short time, back when you were more likely to build your own synth than buy one ready made.
   
   
8. Elektor - The English edition of a Dutch magazine. Aimed at the same level as ETI but more serious
   
   
9. Wireless World - Aimed at professional readers with a mathematical analysis of any circuits. When they did projcts they were usually very high end, such as Hi-Fi amplifiers aiming to beat anything commercially available
   
   
10. Television - Although aimed at TV repairmen it was popular enough to appear in many Newsagents. I guess there were far more TV repairmen back then.

Where I worked in the 1980s (an Aerospace site with thousands of employees) there was a Newsagents in the entrance of the canteen who sold most of these magazines. If they didn't have one there were four different newsagents in the shops clustered around the main entrance.

I think the number of Electronics magazines started to drop as computers and computer magazines became more popular.
I think Hobby Electronics disappeared shortly after the publisher started publishing Computing Today

Nowadays the only ones left are Everyday Practical Electronics, Elektor, and Practical Wireless (which is now aimed at Radio Hams).
It is rare to see any of them in Newagents.

As a final bonus look at this ETI special.

https://www.americanradiohistory.co...Electronics-Tomorrow-from-ETI-Winter-1977.pdf

I have the original somewhere.
If you only look at two things the cartoons starting on page 16, and the Hi-Fi predictions on page 28 are worth looking at. I built the ChromaChime doorbell kit advertised on page 24. the first Microprocessor in my parents house.