Och, these prices!

[Flojomojo]

In the 90s, I would constantly hit salescircular.com for prices on PC upgrade parts, then visit the box stores for price matches on things like CD burners, blank media, USB hubs ...gaah what a racket. It's so nice that things are decently integrated now, that you don't need to futz with dedicated sound boards and the like.

[AMenard]

The C64 was $200 cheaper than the Atari at launch and came with 64k of RAM. What was the advantage of getting an Atari 800?

The C64 at first wasn't all that great. We tend to judge the C64 by the later releases on the system and not on what was available at launch. Both the atari and the apple had a few years under their belt and the games and apps developper had time to learn how to code for those two arch. In the 8bit scene both the atari and the c64 were comparable and would trade blow over their career. Neither disapointed me.

[+davidcalgary29]

It was much the same in Nova Scotia; I do not remember Sears ever selling video games, but many (most?) of my Atari cartridges came from Consumer's Distributing -- there was a location very close to my house.

 

Eaton's sold the Colecovision and, later, the Genesis -- I remember playing demos of both consoles in store. They were sold in the (ground-floor) toy department; the electronics department was upsrtairs on the third floor (with furniture, rugs, etc.).

 

Did Eaton's still offer a catalogue into the 1980s? I do not recall having seen any after produced about the 1970s.

Yes, I saw Eatons catalogues in the 80s. Cant remember seeing consumer electronics in them, though.

 

And at least Consumers was better than Service Merchandise. I stopped ordering from them when I heard the thump and rattle as items were thrown on the conveyor belt...

 

The C64 was $200 cheaper than the Atari at launch and came with 64k of RAM. What was the advantage of getting an Atari 800?

Inferior software selection until 1984. It wasnt clear until later that year that the C64 was going to run away from the field. Plus, the Commodore line (before the Amiga 1000 and the C128) is really, really ugly.

[Keatah]

I remember with the Apple II. It was a non-stop ride of something new every week. Whether it be peripheral card or software or some other add-on. Didn't stop till I got into the PC in 1992/1993

 

In the 90s, I would constantly hit salescircular.com for prices on PC upgrade parts, then visit the box stores for price matches on things like CD burners, blank media, USB hubs ...gaah what a racket. It's so nice that things are decently integrated now, that you don't need to futz with dedicated sound boards and the like.

 

I remember that, USB hubs, CD-ROM Multi-Media kits, 2x, 4x, 6x speeds, talk about elite! Arguments over a 2MB or 4MB videocard and which bus and chip it used. Baggghh!

[tbb033]

Ordering from Sears was kind of a last-ditch effort back then, at least at our house. The catalogs had a long lead time and didn't carry everything that a brick-and-mortar store would. You'd have to mail in an order form with a check, or give a credit card number over the telephone, then wait at least a week for shipping. The warehouse stores didn't have nearly the advantage that they do today, with instant "catalog" publishing over the internet, easy automated ordering, and very fast (often overnight) shipping.

 

Calling around to different stores was probably almost fun back then ... I like to imagine retail employees were more into their jobs than they are now.

 

Intellivision was impossibly advanced and sophisticated to me back then. I didn't have one until the big crash.

A week? That's how long it is now, unless you sell your firstborn for special overnight shipping. And now with cheap or free shipping, they only ship it 90% of the way then just drop it off with the subpar regular mail that loses a lot more stuff than the actual shippers!

 

Back then it was more like 6-8 weeks.

[Flojomojo]

Amazon Prime has spoiled me, perhaps.

[Jumpman1981]

you think that's bad, check out this graded copy of Moonwalker on Genesis.

 

 

I have not altered this in any way.