I endure that every day when I look in the mirror.
Self-deprecation’s the best deprecation. Don’t hate anyone but yourself, that’s my motto. Or it would be if I wanted it to be, which I don’t, because it’s a terrible motto.
I think it's just the cultural shift as computers became common and the 'computer store' was no longer the domain of the geek... Or perhaps, the feeling of walking into a small computer shop became intimidating while you could not be afraid to be a dummy at Best Buy. We used to have a store, aptly named 'Software Supermarket'... I worked there part-time as a high school geekender... Anyway, I recall when we'd get 25 copies of 'Kings Quest' or 10 Amiga 500's in a shipment. It would be the same 50-100 people in that store week in and week out.
In my small city, we had maybe 5 of these little shops... each with 3-5 employees and the square footage of a large washroom. It wasn't about computers, it was about community. The first round of death for these shops was Gateway... the large 'Computer Shopper' magazine where people got their tech-fix by mail-order. Suddenly saving $50 on a $3000 computer was worth killing your local shop.
A few stuck it out only to be killed by the big box... and the Apple Store is just an extension of the big box. But, it also recreates that atmosphere of being 'a computer store' and even though they are relatively sparse, I know plenty of people that plan a trip to the city around a stop at The Apple Store.
What will kill the Apple Store? Who knows... but nothing seems to last. They certainly tie up huge capital in prime locations and artsy architecture. Kind of reminds me of Gateway and their 'fancy' cow boxes... Hmmm....
Those phrases like 'Nothing lasts for ever' and 'All good things come to an end' are easy to slip off the tongue, but so are lies. Here in Ye Olde Englande, there are lots of shops still going strong with several hundred years of history. So who knows? They may disappear in a decade, or they may be firing on all cylinders when we're all done and dusted.
Wasn't there also a model which suffered from 'self-rising' memory modules? And Apple advised customers over phone support to 'power down and disconnect the Mac, lift it 6 inches and then simply drop it'. "This ought to reseat the modules".
The memory chips (and some others) working loose was the problem I described in my post. I never heard of "dropping it 6 inches" * as a solution. Rather, the burn-in would heat the chips and cause them to loosen. You then pushed down on each chip [with power on if you were good at it] and reseat the chip in its socket (usually with an audible click). Rinse and repeat over 24 hours and the chip contacts and socket contactss would acclimate themselves to each other -- which largely resolved the issue.
Many Apple IIIs failed because, as BYTE wrote, "the integrated circuits tended to wander out of their sockets".[11] Many Apple IIIs experienced heating issues, allegedly caused by insufficient cooling and inability to dissipate the heat efficiently. To address the heat problem, later Apple III's were fitted with heat sinks. But still, the case design made it impossible for enough heat to escape. Some users stated that their Apple III became so hot that the chips started dislodging from the board, the screen would display garbled data, or their disk would come out of the slot "melted". In a technical bulletin, customers who were experiencing certain problems were instructed to lift the machine 3 inches (76 mm) and drop it in order to re-seat the chips on the logic board.
Sorry ... In the '80s Apple was aggressively approving dealerships -- like gas stations, 4 on every street corner So we stopped paying attention to any but the stores in Silicon Valley.
Go, Trojans!
THAT needs bigger type... :smokey:
I thought I once read here that you also had something to do with the store out in the Valley... Calabasas I think(?)
TarPits R Us ??? Snarky; missed opportunity; or just pointing out your knowledge of the area I'm talking about? 8-)
If I could inject some facts into this discussion. I'm the person quoted in the source article. I've been with them for over 25 years. We do indeed have 75 employees. We do far more than just sell hardware. A trip to our Web site will show the list. Only about 20% of our employees are involved in the retail hardware business. We were the first dealer. Not the first to sell apple. As some pointed out, Byteshop holds that honor. But we were the first company to sign a dealer contract with them. Our buyer traveled out to the west coast computer fair and saw the very first public showing of the not yet shipping apple II computer being demoed by a couple guys named Steve. He also met with Mike markula, the then president of apple. He had Mike and Steve jobs fly out to demo one of the very first apple II computers off the assembly line to our company. Oddly, mr Jobs didn't speak at all during the demo. He just ran the computer. Apple didn't have any contracts at the time, so we gave them a copy of our pioneer audio contract and they used that as the basis for their very first dealer contract, which we signed. Hope that clears up some of the questions. -Fred Evans, Firsttech.
Comments
Self-deprecation’s the best deprecation. Don’t hate anyone but yourself, that’s my motto. Or it would be if I wanted it to be, which I don’t, because it’s a terrible motto.
More evidence that Apple is doomed. Will Apple HQ be next?
Doomed, zuned. When will you trolls ever stop?
Oh, hello Slurpy.
I think about 95% of the uses of the word "doomed" on this site are now by people who are pro-Apple. To me, the joke is tired.
I thought about making it into a drinking game, but I'd be dead of alcohol poisoning in two hours.
That's because most people here are decent. In the rest of the world, 95% of instances are anti-Apple.
I think it's just the cultural shift as computers became common and the 'computer store' was no longer the domain of the geek... Or perhaps, the feeling of walking into a small computer shop became intimidating while you could not be afraid to be a dummy at Best Buy. We used to have a store, aptly named 'Software Supermarket'... I worked there part-time as a high school geekender... Anyway, I recall when we'd get 25 copies of 'Kings Quest' or 10 Amiga 500's in a shipment. It would be the same 50-100 people in that store week in and week out.
In my small city, we had maybe 5 of these little shops... each with 3-5 employees and the square footage of a large washroom. It wasn't about computers, it was about community. The first round of death for these shops was Gateway... the large 'Computer Shopper' magazine where people got their tech-fix by mail-order. Suddenly saving $50 on a $3000 computer was worth killing your local shop.
A few stuck it out only to be killed by the big box... and the Apple Store is just an extension of the big box. But, it also recreates that atmosphere of being 'a computer store' and even though they are relatively sparse, I know plenty of people that plan a trip to the city around a stop at The Apple Store.
What will kill the Apple Store? Who knows... but nothing seems to last. They certainly tie up huge capital in prime locations and artsy architecture. Kind of reminds me of Gateway and their 'fancy' cow boxes... Hmmm....
Those phrases like 'Nothing lasts for ever' and 'All good things come to an end' are easy to slip off the tongue, but so are lies. Here in Ye Olde Englande, there are lots of shops still going strong with several hundred years of history. So who knows? They may disappear in a decade, or they may be firing on all cylinders when we're all done and dusted.
LOL ... a self-deprecating bitter, hateful douche bag -- how'd you get your hands on my mirror :???:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_III#Design_flaws
"There used to be a project for creating ever lasting food, but it got canned" or something along those lines?
What a mess! Can you imagine if something that bad happened today with the internet and 24 news coverage?
I thought I once read here that you also had something to do with the store out in the Valley... Calabasas I think(?)
TarPits R Us ??? Snarky; missed opportunity; or just pointing out your knowledge of the area I'm talking about? 8-)
I'm the person quoted in the source article. I've been with them for over 25 years.
We do indeed have 75 employees. We do far more than just sell hardware. A trip to our Web site will show the list. Only about 20% of our employees are involved in the retail hardware business.
We were the first dealer. Not the first to sell apple. As some pointed out, Byteshop holds that honor. But we were the first company to sign a dealer contract with them. Our buyer traveled out to the west coast computer fair and saw the very first public showing of the not yet shipping apple II computer being demoed by a couple guys named Steve. He also met with Mike markula, the then president of apple. He had Mike and Steve jobs fly out to demo one of the very first apple II computers off the assembly line to our company. Oddly, mr Jobs didn't speak at all during the demo. He just ran the computer. Apple didn't have any contracts at the time, so we gave them a copy of our pioneer audio contract and they used that as the basis for their very first dealer contract, which we signed.
Hope that clears up some of the questions.
-Fred Evans, Firsttech.
Fantastic that you signed up and give us these facts. Thank you very much for doing so.