Good to see others remember some of the old stuff.
My first saltwater tank was a 45 gallon tall back around 1986 I think. We had a small single pet shop when I was stationed in Oklahoma and if you wanted something you had him order it. Live rock was something that was hard to get and was extremely expensive (especially for some little airman). We were pushing undergravel filters with powerheads and that was high tech at the time.

Of course this was also many years after the metal framed tanks of guppies, platties, swordtails, etc. when we were kids. We though we had hit it big time when we had a hang on back filter that was powered by air hose.