Well back then HT was almost non-existant. Back in the 80's I honestly don't remember being at anyone's house who had their tv's hooked up to external speakers. I'm not saying NOBODY did it, but it was extremely rare back then. So the vast majority of people just listened to their movies through their 'usually' mono tv sets.
I can remember back in 1991 when I was in the AirForce going down and buying my very first 27 inch 'BIG SCREEN' (it had a sticker boastng this fact across the screen)
stereo television. I got it home, hooked up my new 'hi-fi' VHS player and thought I was the absolute shit because none of my friends had a stereo tv! So naturally my room was where everyone wanted to watch tv for a while, until everyone else caught on that the place I got mine at would issue anyone with a military I.D. a credit card with a $1500 dollar credit limit (I think the 27 inch tv was around $1200 bucks back then). They did this because the credt card had a 25% interest rate & they knew the military would MAKE their airmen pay their debts (getting into financial trouble in the military was a serious offense).
And besides, we didn't care what the damn percentage rate was so long as we had us a brand new 'stereo' tv in our room!!!
It wasn't until about 3 years later when I looked at my statement and still owed like $1000 dollars (the monthly payment was like $25 bucks, which I trusted would pay off my debt in no time flat) on that card that I never used after that initial purchase before I finally scratched my head and went, "hu"???
