Mclaneinc Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 Ha ha...That's how I felt like with Maplin, all the wonderful machines, total access to all the software certain other perks.. I have to say that Silica was much better, because we were also component sales I was dragged away from the Atari side all the time, Silica would have been pure joy to be in for me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nysavant Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 9 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said: Ha ha...That's how I felt like with Maplin, all the wonderful machines, total access to all the software certain other perks.. I have to say that Silica was much better, because we were also component sales I was dragged away from the Atari side all the time, Silica would have been pure joy to be in for me. It was a dream job Paul. When I saw the job advert for it in our local newspaper I ran all the way home to call the number for an interview. We had a good bunch of guys, a few of whom I went on to work at Escom with. But that's another story! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 I'm glad you had a good time and growing up with the hobby you love AND getting well paid for it is the mutts nuts.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SectorWars Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 Does anyone know who were the people behind the shop (ie: the owners of the original Sidcup branch) before it expanded into a large chain? I wonder if they are still around nowadays as it would be good to hear from them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gigapig Posted May 25, 2020 Share Posted May 25, 2020 (edited) A Google search of Silica Shop has brought me here and so I decided to drag down my old mail shots and membership club books I received around 1983/4 and 1985 when I was 13, 14 and 15 years old. All the materials were still in the original envelopes and in great condition except for the some creases. I've really enjoyed looking back at them and have decided to put them into proper folders so I can have a look any time and have a read. Here's a selection. Thank you. I wanted one of these so bad but could never afford one. It flopped so maybe just as well. Inside the Atari catalogue is this great photo. Anika Rice in this shot. Best joysticks at the time if not all time. I still have the Tac 2. Where is Alan Scholes of Accrington now? Edited May 25, 2020 by Gigapig 7 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted May 25, 2020 Share Posted May 25, 2020 Hello Silica Shop, I would like to order the following things from your online catalog, as seen at Atari Age: ... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted May 26, 2020 Share Posted May 26, 2020 Pic of the TAC 2 JS. Still my go-to stick for joy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DGS-Atari Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 I have a few scans of old Silica Shop flyers (which I think are different ones to those already posted) in the 'Pictures & Scans' section of my website: http://www.dgs.clara.net/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luap Posted August 30, 2020 Share Posted August 30, 2020 On 3/13/2018 at 10:06 AM, Mclaneinc said: Sorry folks, the best Silica Shop was its original shop in Sidcup Kent, for an Atarian it was a piece of heaven.. And for trivia, Silica has more ties to Atari, Noel Daniel who was one of the programmers of Sidewinder and the sole programmer of Thunderfox worked in the Tottenham Court road branch, really nice guy and a good friend back then. Also in the same shop was Eroll Elliston who co-wrote Foundations Waste on the ST. But on the dubious side was a guy nicknamed Splatt (I could be mixing the name up with another BBS guy) who ran a pirate BBS selling access to Amiga software. Yep, all true... Sadly Silica in Tottenham Court Road went bust and pulled the firm down because some staff later on were selling stock out the back door to order when it was already struggling with the huge number of other computer sellers in the same road. Wow! I dont believe it I just Googled SDL Sidcup Kent just to see if I would get anything and this came up Great! I live in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset and I remember driving all the way up (or across) to Sidcup in my old little Original Mini must be sometime between 1981-1985 as I had a Mattel intellivision console back then and heard about this fantastic Atari 800 that used ROM cartridges and this shop called SDL, how I knew I wish I could remember as back then there was no internet well no WWW so must of been word of month or a magazine to hear that down in our neck of the woods, so I drove up must of been a Saturday and I dont know how I find it?, easy too with no satnav then either!, (must of used a map LOL or read signposts, what is frustrating is... how I cant remember who I took with me (not the wife I know that much). The Shop was very busy and on the shelf was this beast of a machine playing a Football game with solid players 2D, I was sold straight away, I had took my intellision up with me as they even did trade in (again how did I know that?) I cant remember the Price but I knew it was a lot of money, I think my wife paid £130 ish for the intellivision for a previous Birthday present, Im thinking £300 ish for the Atari which was a lot of money back then more like £500 or £600 or more now. I really enjoy those days... exciting as it wasn't as easy as it is today, more fun having to wait and work for the new tec stuff, not like now just downloading it in seconds, more fun in a funny kind of way. Wow I CAN NOT BELIEVE I HAVE JUST TYPED ALL THIS SORRY, i must of wanted to desperately share this, lets hope someone reads it. Cheers who ever you might be ? 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
makuk999 Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 On 4/27/2020 at 9:30 AM, Jetboot Jack said: SDL (Silica's distribution company) was one of my main suppliers when I ran Computer Cavern in Reading. The store started out as ORDEM and were Atari only for the first couple of years (up until 87)... sTeVE Happy days Steve.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 Computer Cavern, I used to go up to there to get bits for a mate..Small old world.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwc Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 I have great memories of getting Silica Shop catalogues through the post (sadly I didn't hang on to any). I had a Saturday job at Laskys 42 Tottenham Court Road in 1989/90 and used to call into Silica Shop (which was just a few doors up) most weeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 I just loved going to Hatherly Mews, not so easy once I joined Maplin because the best day to go to Silica was a saturday and I worked most of those. As for when Laskeys was there, that would have been the original Silica shop and not the site inside the big shop (Debenhams or such like). The stories I could tell of the original shop, mind you both had a fair share of interesting things and lots of skullduggery.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted December 14, 2020 Share Posted December 14, 2020 On 12/11/2020 at 4:39 PM, Mclaneinc said: Computer Cavern, I used to go up to there to get bits for a mate..Small old world.. My shop from late 80's to early 90's... sTeVE 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted December 14, 2020 Share Posted December 14, 2020 sTeVE, I think you forgot something... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SectorWars Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 (edited) I found an old UK magazine called 'Electronic Toys & Games Review' which I bought in the 1980s. I can't find the date in the magazine but it must be around 1981-83. It has a two page article on Silica Shop which some of you might find interesting. I scanned the magazine cover, the reverse of the cover which had a Silica Shop advert, the magazine intro page, the 2-page article on Silica, and the magazine back page. Once I get my proper scanner setup I will scan the whole magazine. The PDF: Electronic_Toys_and_Games_Review_Magazine_Silica_Shop_Atari_Article.pdf Edited January 5, 2021 by SectorWars 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Ace Posted January 7, 2021 Share Posted January 7, 2021 Here's the text extracted for easier reading: SILICA ~ THE SHOP OF PLENTY The Silica Shop is the Mecca for South London electronic gamers — it is also one of the best known and respected mail order houses in the country. The shop nestles surprisingly in an old mews just a short missile blast away from Sidcup High Street. Stepping inside the overall effect is like entering a 21st century version of Aladdin’s cave: the walls are lined with glittering game displays of every type and they resound with the familiar crashes of invaders biting the dust and that immortally demented Atari music. Those insistent bleeping tones are the sweet song of success for Tony Deane and Mike West the directors of this fast-growing and highly successful business. Tony explained how they got started. “Right from the beginning we had the intention of specialising in leisure electronics. We began by selling cheap semi-programmables for £30 to £40. We found plenty of buyers for them, around Christmas 1978 and then we expanded into selling the fully-programmable types, starting off with Atari. “Atari is the most popular TV game on the market at the moment — it outsells everything else by about ten-to-one and we are becoming known throughout the London area as THE Atari specialist. There’s nothing that fits the Atari that we don’t have in stock. It’s part of our philosophy. We figure if you’re going to do something, then do it well and thoroughly and, well, if you buy a Ford car then you expect the same place to be able to sell you spares for the thing. That’s how Atari should be sold. “The problem with buying a machine through a big store is that most of them are interested in selling you one for around £99 and making a quick killing. They couldn’t care less about supporting the thing. We CAN care and that’s how we make our money. “We try to provide a service. For example, by the end of this year there will be around forty chess computers in the market and we’ll stock every one of them. Poor old Joe Public doesn’t stand a chance — he can only look at that range and think ‘Which one...?’ He can’t go to the manufacturers in the States: the importers are very cagey about giving out information, so he comes to us. What we do is reprint reviews from magazines, copies of instructions booklets, anything that’ll give him the information he wants and send it out. It costs us an enormous amount in postage and printing but we hope that if Joe buys, then he’ll do it from us.” From what we saw in the shop, on an ordinary weekday morning, Joe Public is certainly visiting Silica Shop in pretty large numbers — it would probably be difficult to get in the doors on a weekend! And it’s not just Atari that he’s coming to buy and see — Tony and his colleagues have widened their range enormously, now you can get virtually any TV game in the shop, plus all the cartridges and other extras. Now that chess computers are becoming more popular you can see the whole range of those as well. But perhaps the most important newcomer, at least from Tony’s point of view is the personal computer. When we interviewed him, the shop had just had its first delivery of the Atari 4/800 sets. Tony was very pleased with the reception they’d received AND the way Atari had handled the whole thing. “Now that Atari have come on to the market, home computers are the fastest mover we’ve got. The way they approached it was to say, ‘We’ve got a good name, and a good image. Everyone knows the TV game, so let’s build on that image and bring out a home computer’. The biggest problem with all the home computers so far was that the manufacturers rushed on to the market and the problem for the buyer has been that the basic machine has been available, but the software and other hardware has NOT. “Now Atari took a much more cautious approach and decided not to launch until absolutely everything was ready. We received our first delivery of the computers only two weeks ago and we got everything — main units, programmes, disc drives, back-up spares, manuals — everything is there.” And now that Tony does have everything in stock, you can be sure that he’ll be doing everything possible to shift it out to you — Joe Public — along with the standard TV games, hand helds, chess computers and 1001 other products that he keeps in his Aladdin’s cave. As we said earlier Tony was suitably pleased with the efficient way Atari have handled the computer’s launch — it has been efficient and if something is to make money then, in Tony’s book, efficiency is indispensable. The Silica Shop runs with stunning efficiency and we’d bet that it makes a stunning amount of money — but the thing to remember about the whole organisation, whether it be the shop or the mail order side, is that it makes that money by giving a fair and honest service to you — Joe Public. If you are in the area and want to sample the latest on the electronic game market, stick your head round the door, you are welcome to try anything they have in stock. If you’re too far away to get there, drop them a line for their selection of literature. The address is: Silica Shop 1-4 The Mews Hatherley Road Sidcup, Kent DA14 4DX. --- Shop manageress Mary Nelson displays a Chess game outside the shop. A great Saturday morning haven for the youngsters. Another staffer (there are around 20 in all), Bob Katz this time, introduces our compiler to the delights of the Atari computer system — and the Star Raiders game in particular! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RetroRavi Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 I have scanned some later Silica Adverts for Atari I thought you folks would enjoy 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E474 Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 Hi, Here's a Silica Shop Catalogue from 20th August, 1982, which appears to be the earliest one posted so far. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 Wow, love it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 Just look at the Falcon prices and that's with £400 off a small fortune back then 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 And a HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 200mb HD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoroPaul Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 What a wonderful trip down memory lane. I helped a friend get a job in their Manchester shop by educating him on everything they sold.... Particularly enjoyed the newspaper article post by @SectorWars 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nysavant Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 It's great seeing more posts of the old Silica flyers. It would be nice to get as many as possible into pdf format and host them somewhere for everyone to enjoy. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RioWills Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 My first full time job was with Silica in 1990, I was 16 and I started out stuffing envelopes with that literature and sending it out. Brilliant to see it again thank you! I moved to Silica Shop TCR and worked in the office upstairs. It was a lovely shop and the lads were a great bunch! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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