Re: DEC retail stores in the 1980s

From: Alfred Falk (falk_at_arc.REMOVE.ab.ca)
Date: 11/24/04 

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:40:43 GMT

JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@teksavvy.com> wrote in
news:41A4062D.FB1277CA@teksavvy.com:

> Lee Roth wrote:
>> Anyone remember the DEC retail stores? A few of these
>> stores appeared about the time that the "Super Trio" of
>> systems all appeared in the same form-factor boxes:
>
> In canada, there was a chain of stores called "DataTerminal Mart".
>
> Bought a canadian VT52 clone (Cybernex terminal) and a 300bps
> accoustic coupler modem from them in 1981. They had an actual store in
> a downtown shopping mall. They also had a PDP11-in-a-VT-100 product on
> display (but was too expsnive for me as a student entering uni :-)
>
> Later, that stored moved to industrial park offices selling only to
> commercial acocunts and disapeared.

DTM was quite successful for about a decade. As their name implied they
sold mainly terminals, modems and accessories. Personal computers were
not a yet an important factor in the business. Their market was
commericial/industrial end users. I (as a small contract programming
firm) bought stuff from them, as did my present employer.
I still remember one of their print ads. It showed a couple of salesman
making a presentation with diagrams of socks. "If you bought socks the
way you buy computer equipment, they'd cost $200 a pair." In time the
same reasoning would be applied to all computer gear, not just
terminals.
 
> Meanwhile, the few stores that carried Commodore Pet and Apple II grew
> into chains here (such as Compucentre) and many still exist today.
> There was one shop that "rented" software for the day. When the
> government decided that this was just too obvious a crime (copying
> software), they were shut down by the RCMP, but re-emerged as a
> bona-fide computer store and is now part of a chain 20 years later. 

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