Did you ever get thrown out of a computer store?

[Keatah]

I did years ago. It was a Computerland shop and I somehow found myself copying The Transformer for the Amiga. It was an emulator that supposedly turned the Amiga into a PC. They didn't like it. They confiscated my box of disks, formatted them, and sent me on my way.

[+save2600]

Was probably less about pirating software and more about you wanting to degrade an Amiga that way. For shame!

 

To answer the question, no I did not. Even when young, was never compelled to loiter or just hang out for very long, especially if I wasn't purchasing something.

[R.Cade]

The funny thing is, I don't think that emulator was ever sold. It came with the A1020 5.25" drive...

 

I bet that was embarrassing.

 

I must be a little older, because there were no computer stores except Radio Shack when I was a kid, and it was boring playing with the TRS-80 (no color).

 

I did hang out at K-Mart playing the Atari 2600 and TI-99/4A kiosks for hours. They never seemed to care or kick me out.

Edited December 13, 2016 by R.Cade

[Mulletino]

Two of the local computer stores I used to frequent always had X-Copy running on the shop Amiga behind the counter.

 

I miss those old stores.

[BassGuitari]

No, can't say I ever did.

[MarkO]

I never was thrown out..

 

I bought a Lot of Apple stuff from my local Team Electronics...

 

 

MarkO

[dafivehole]

I got into an argument with some stranger that I was play Pac-Man against on a 2600 in Wilson's (Service Merchandise)... neither of us got thrown out but we raised some eyebrows

[Sinphaltimus]

No, but I made it a habit to wipe PC laptops that were on display.

[Rick Dangerous]

I used to steal promo signage as a teenager because they wouldn't sell it to me and told me it had to go back to the manufacturer (I.E. Dumpster.) I never got caught and kicked out but I kind of feel bad about it now.

 

Still....have some cool Nintendo/Sega signs to this day because of my sticky fingers.

[+OLD CS1]

Got caught at Circuit City running a ROM grabber on the Macs for the Mac emulator running on my Amiga. Was given an eye but not directly kicked out, though I was pretty certain I was not welcome. The program was in German so nobody could read it, I told them it was running performance benchmarks for a program I wanted to run. Sure, they believed me.

 

Otherwise I was also welcome as a youth in the computer stores and Radio Shack. Getting older, not so much. In my late teens I used to hang around some in the mall when I was bored and asked the sales guys questions I knew they could not answer (yeah, I was THAT guy. But not very long.) Pissed me off these schmucks were selling things they new nothing about.

[SoulBlazer]

I recall as a young kid in the early 80's killing time at a neighboring store while my Mom shopped next door (that was common to do in those days). I think it was a department store. Anyway, they had a kiosk with demos of C64 games. You select the game, and a male voice spoke about the game while it showed you gameplay from the game. Each one was around a minute long. Being bored, I kept using it for about a hour (not that anyone else was around or seemed to care) until a employee came up to me and asked me politely to stop. So I wasn't thrown out, per say, but it was clear to them I wasn't going to buy anything and after that I just nodded, apologized and walked out.

[+save2600]

Pissed me off these schmucks were selling things they new nothing about.

 

You mean like nearly every_single_person_in_retail today?

[Keatah]

Compu-Shop and the TRS-80 Computer Centers were my fav hangouts. The guys at RS were always willing to troubleshoot my Pocket Computer type-in typos and defective logic.

 

The guy with the 'fro at Compu-Shop was especially nice, I could log what must have been hours or days playing stuff on the Apple II. The trick worked because we bought hardware from there.

 

Software+ and Northbrook Computers were cool too. Though beyond getting my Apple Cat II and huge 50 ton desk there I don't recall too many specifics ATM.

[+save2600]

Software+ …the premiere Amiga shop of the northern suburbs.

[+OLD CS1]

 

You mean like nearly every_single_person_in_retail today?

 

For the most part... yeah. When I worked retail we were trained on everything. In places we were not trained we were expected to learn on our own. I have a great respect for companies and stores where employees are trained these days and tend to shop there more, provided the product is appropriate (I do not buy a lot of makeup these days.)

[Keatah]

Software+ …the premiere Amiga shop of the northern suburbs.

 

I wonder what happened to the space shuttle mural they had going?

[+save2600]

 

I wonder what happened to the space shuttle mural they had going?

 

Hmm… might need a memory jog, but don't seem to remember *that* Endeavor (get it?) at the Arlington Heights location. Where was it painted? Had to have been inside, on the white painted cinder block walls as the store was sandwiched in a strip mall. Nope, must not have been that store.

[Tempest]

Actually I used to trade pirated apple II games and swap hints about the latest Infocom games with the guys at the local EggHead store (remember those?). Later on I used to download mods for Doom at the local CompUSA. They turned a blind eye to it because the guy who was doing it was literally the only person who knew what they were doing there and they were afraid he'd leave if they pissed him off. Ah good times...

[Keatah]

 

Hmm… might need a memory jog, but don't seem to remember *that* Endeavor (get it?) at the Arlington Heights location. Where was it painted? Had to have been inside, on the white painted cinder block walls as the store was sandwiched in a strip mall. Nope, must not have been that store.

 

I don't recall visiting the arlington hites store. I only remember the one in hangover park. It was on the back wall. And you could see right from the car

[barrym95838]

In about 1983, we had a high-school field trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science. In one room, there was an Apple ][ hooked up to a very large projection monitor, and it was controlling some kind of laser disc rocketry demo of some sort. The computer and other hardware were in a very secure box, so the power and RESET were not accessible, but most of the keyboard was exposed, to allow some visitor interaction. Something in me wanted to see if it was running BASIC or ML, so I jammed a whole bunch of CTRL-C and REPT combinations as fast as I could, and in a few seconds I blew out the "ONERR GOTO" stack and crashed it to the monitor prompt. From there, I "CTRL-B"d my way back to BASIC and quickly typed in and ran a LO-RES kaleidoscope program on the huge screen. Only my two friends saw me do it, but we only had to hang around nonchalantly for a few minutes before a pissed-off employee saw what happened, and unlocked the security box to reboot and restart the proper demo, glancing around and mumbling under his breath the whole time. If I had been caught, I'm pretty sure that I would have had to wait for the rest of the afternoon on the bus, but I got away free.

 

Mike B.

Edited December 15, 2016 by barrym95838

[ClausB]

Not so much thrown out as wished away. It was 1984 at a store in Manhattan which displayed a new Mindset PC. It had a small crowd of sales people around it oohing and ahhing and ignoring - even excluding - customers like me. I have wondered if that was common and contributed to the Mindset's failure.

[Airshack]

There's still time to provide a yes answer to this question.

[shoestring]

I got thrown out of a computer store for apparently screwing up the workbench disks on an Amiga 2000.

 

All I did was drag a few windows and double click on some icons. *shrug*

[+OLD CS1]

There's still time to provide a yes answer to this question.

 

The BX had an Amiga 500 and 2000 on display. I used to go up there a lot and fantasize about replacing my Commodore 128 with the 500. My mum worked there and made me go home on a few occasions. Does that count?

[+save2600]

 

The BX had an Amiga 500 and 2000 on display. I used to go up there a lot and fantasize about replacing my Commodore 128 with the 500. My mum worked there and made me go home on a few occasions. Does that count?

 

That's a very cool memory! Do you happen to remember what they were selling the Amiga's for by chance? MSRP on the A500 back then was $599 and the A2000 about $1500. Used to hear about all the great deals to be had on electronics in particular. Had a friend whose dad was stationed in Saudi Arabia that would bring home all sorts of high end consumer electronics on the cheap. Lots of stereo gear.