I first started brewing around '82 or so. Extract of course. We steeped a few grains and we thought that was pretty advanced. No temp control... actually, an old unfinished, concrete floored bathroom that we deemed stayed pretty stable temp-wise was it. Our beer was never that great, always tasted.... off. Had that "homebrew" taste to it. In 2016 I decided I wanted to brew again, but fix all the issues we had.
So much more info out there as compared to the '80s... being the Bay Area we had a couple of different places we could get supplies from back then.