What was Akihabara like in the 1970s/80s/90s?

I recently had the opportunity to visit Tokyo for the first time ever recently, it was an excellent experience. I especially liked Shimokitazawa! As someone who has always been fascinated by electronics (particularly computers, game systems, music equipment etc.) visiting Akihabara was so awesome. I was sad to hear that many shops had apparently closed over the years. It made me feel nostalgic for a place i've never seen!

I was hoping somebody here would fill me in on what i had missed back in those days? What were the backstreets like back then? Were there a lot more arcades in the past?

Akihabara used to live up to its Electric Town name a lot more. Being a place where people would go to source PCBs, components, get CDs duplicated, etc. A friend of mine told me it used to be like a mini Shenzhen. Some of that stuff still exists but these days Akihabara is more about targeting tourists who want anime and video game related goods, though there may have been a time not that long ago when it would have been a more attractive destination for even interested in those things. They are just literally everywhere in Tokyo now which I suppose makes akihabara a little bit less special in a way. I had an ex-boyfriend who loves going to games centres but would always pass on the opportunity when we were in Akihabara just because you can find almost exactly the same thing in the neighbourhood we were living in, just with less crowds and generally lower prices to use some of the machines.

There are a few photos of photos here:
https://dannychoo.com/en/posts/history-of-akihabara
And there are definitely other interesting articles out there as well if you search. I�fve seen them.

In the early to mid-80s, I used to go there for two reasons: souvenirs for friends (Laox et al.), or electronic components. I saw all the appliances and computers but didn't shop for those. On the smaller side streets there were shops specializing in resistors, transistors, tubes, circuit boards, and other parts for amplifiers, radios, and the like. These shops seem to have largely disappeared. They would have their components displayed outside the entrance much like an old grocery store would put its produce out on the sidewalk. I think as Chinese components became cheaper than Japanese-manufactured components, the shops were forced to close down.

A quick Google search gave me "Akihabara archives"
https://akiba.or.jp/archives/

Shown in �y�zbrackets are, from top, prologue, pre-WW2, post WW2, from late 1950s, from late 1960s, and so on.

The first time I really went to Akihabara was in the early 1980s when it had a tone of an electronic wholesalers' town. Near the station there were stalls after stalls of tiny electronic parts, and then we headed to a broad street where I as a poor university student bargained for a Denon record player, Sansui preamp and a pair of JBL speakers.

Manga, anime and otaku were yet to become English words, idols had nothing whatsoever to do with Akihabara, and shopkeepers didn't talk like they do now. They talked like ordinary shopkeepers.

Here are a couple of videos describing the era.

Akihabara in the 80s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6vUjuBOiFM

A veteran developer who shopped in Akihabara
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1WGjQtU3CU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD_iWSdsk5g&list=RDzD_iWSdsk5g&index=1