Any memories of the old shops we used to visit?

My older brother bought me a ZX Spectrum ~1983 from a WH Smiths in Heswall, great when you could just drop in and buy.
It must have cost him a fair chunk of his pay packet at the time, he's a lot to answer for though!
I've had a life long interest in computers (inc Comp Sci BSc), it's helped my career along as well.
 
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PV Tubes, Accrington, Lancashire. Started out at this little gem of a shop in my Spectrum days and moved onto an Amiga 500 with them too.
 
Great memories! Does anyone recall the small computer shop on Tewkesbury High Street that existed in the late 80s and early 90s? I would love to find its name. I have great memories of my parents buying me a Sinclair spectrum +2a action pack (the one with the light gun) there for Christmas 1990!
 
Chips in Middlesbrough . Used to always head there to get the stickers for my floppy disks. But then I'd put too many on 1 disk and it would cause issues.
 
Looks like WH Smith may be selling off their high street stores. They were hugely important in the early days of computers, selling all the early micros. I bought my ZX81 from there, and bought games from them as a school kid. I still remember buying the PSION Adventure Games tape from there. Turns out the games were witten in BASIC and really slow, but I still had fun with them. I also remember having to take my ZX81 back so they could send it off for repair as it wouldn't save.
 
Rifte said:
I also used to ask my mum to order games for me from a catalogue called ' Special Reserve' I think.
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Oh and then staring out of the window for the postman for days on end, good times!

There were two for me in Leigh, Intergames and Cannings. Intergames used to do two crap games and a fiver for any new release so I was always in there, Cannings was a big newsagents and the whole back of the shop was dedicated to games. They had all the consoles on display (even had a Jap import PS1 which blew me away when I saw it), I practically lived in there from about 10 to later than I'd like to admit. It was only a few minutes walk from college so we'd go in and buy some pop and play games for hours on end. Brilliant!

I went to get my eyes tested last year and even the newsagents part of it has closed now. Gaming on the high street not really being a thing anymore is a real loss to society.
 
I've enjoyed this thread - it brought back memories of parting with around £300 of my hard-earned paper round money at EB in Guildford to buy the then top-of-the-range nVidia Geforce 3, with a whopping 64MB of vRAM, and the raw speed of an AGP 4x interface.

I shouldn't have spent that much money...!
The rest of my PC was from a couple of Surrey computer fares, or other parts were bought online (I recall Jungle.com being one source!)
 
blueacid said:
I've enjoyed this thread - it brought back memories of parting with around £300 of my hard-earned paper round money at EB in Guildford to buy the then top-of-the-range nVidia Geforce 3, with a whopping 64MB of vRAM, and the raw speed of an AGP 4x interface.

I shouldn't have spent that much money...!
The rest of my PC was from a couple of Surrey computer fares, or other parts were bought online (I recall Jungle.com being one source!)
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Man I haven't heard of jungle.com in a long time...

Had a Google and found this old guardian article about the sale of the biz in 2000.

www.theguardian.com

Jungle surrender signals great dotcom clearout

It started with a roar, but ended in a whimper. Jungle.com's launch party a year ago was one of dotcom land's most lavish.
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
There was a newsagents right next to me when I was a kid. I would go in there every 2 weeks with my pocket money to buy Amstrad tapes. And right on the corner was a shop that specialized in sweets. I'd always go in there and get a bag of nibbles. (Insert cat meme) I should order some nibbles.
 
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Hi all, I wonder if anyone might help me recall a computer/video game shop in Oldham, Lancashire in the 90's. It used to sell consoles, the 3DO launch, Amiga CD32 launch, SEGA, Nintendo, Commodores, the lot. I *think* it was on Union street, but this is like 30 years ago now so my memory is a bit hazy on the exact location. Maybe Yorkshire street? I could also be wrong in thinking it wasn't a major chain, like an electronics boutique. My memory believes it was an independent store, could be wrong.

The reason why I ask is that my first 'work experience' was there from college, when I was a lad. I sometimes sat in the upstairs office, testing returned games to see if they are faulty. Inserting floppy disks, praying they work so I could have a quick play before I try the next one lol. They also had me doing some advertising art on the computer which was my first experience of desktop publishing. Such an amazing first toe-dip into the world of computing. I bought an Amiga from there and lets just say, the rest is history. I now live in South Australia still doing IT work :D
 
RickTheMelon said:
Hi all, I wonder if anyone might help me recall a computer/video game shop in Oldham, Lancashire in the 90's. It used to sell consoles, the 3DO launch, Amiga CD32 launch, SEGA, Nintendo, Commodores, the lot. I *think* it was on Union street, but this is like 30 years ago now so my memory is a bit hazy on the exact location. Maybe Yorkshire street? I could also be wrong in thinking it wasn't a major chain, like an electronics boutique. My memory believes it was an independent store, could be wrong.

The reason why I ask is that my first 'work experience' was there from college, when I was a lad. I sometimes sat in the upstairs office, testing returned games to see if they are faulty. Inserting floppy disks, praying they work so I could have a quick play before I try the next one lol. They also had me doing some advertising art on the computer which was my first experience of desktop publishing. Such an amazing first toe-dip into the world of computing. I bought an Amiga from there and lets just say, the rest is history. I now live in South Australia still doing IT work :D
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Welcome to the forums :)
 
Glasgow city centre.....a place called G-force!

I used to meet with friends there almost every weekend.

I think it closed down 5 years ago or so.
 
Some relatively local to OCUK might remember Tim's Megastore in Macclesfield. Always tried to drag my mum there if we went to Macc. We're going back to C64 days here though.
Given that me usual game buying experience was a small end aisle in WHSmith, Tim's was like an Aladdins cave to me.

I'm sure I bought several games there, but the only one I specifically remember was Revenge of the Mutant Camels, on the basis that it was lauded as an amazing game in magazines. Unfortunately it was probably about 6 years old by the time I was buying it, and things moved quickly those days. I thought it was terrible! Ironically, probably about the only C64 game I ever bought via a more logical method than looking at the box art.
 
In Hanley, Stoke there was a shop called Thunderdome (I think!). I used to go and trade-in my old Master System games for new ones. Anyway, one day my dad came in with me and saw me get £10 trade in value for a game I bought a few weeks prior for £15 or something. He had a go at the guy for "ripping me off" and I never went back there again :(

There was another place in the market that I believe was called Discs and Discs. I used to buy from him quite a lot. I specifically remember getting Point Blank from there with the light gun and everything. I also got Zelda Wind Waker from there one year for my birthday. Good times....
 
RickTheMelon said:
Hi all, I wonder if anyone might help me recall a computer/video game shop in Oldham, Lancashire in the 90's. It used to sell consoles, the 3DO launch, Amiga CD32 launch, SEGA, Nintendo, Commodores, the lot. I *think* it was on Union street, but this is like 30 years ago now so my memory is a bit hazy on the exact location. Maybe Yorkshire street? I could also be wrong in thinking it wasn't a major chain, like an electronics boutique. My memory believes it was an independent store, could be wrong.

The reason why I ask is that my first 'work experience' was there from college, when I was a lad. I sometimes sat in the upstairs office, testing returned games to see if they are faulty. Inserting floppy disks, praying they work so I could have a quick play before I try the next one lol. They also had me doing some advertising art on the computer which was my first experience of desktop publishing. Such an amazing first toe-dip into the world of computing. I bought an Amiga from there and lets just say, the rest is history. I now live in South Australia still doing IT work :D
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In case anyone stumbles on this from Google, like I did:
My brother managed to find out the name of the shop. It was called "Home and Business Technology Centre" at 46-48 Yorkshire Street, Oldham.
The answer was listed here in the Acorn dealer directory from 1990


Duke said:
Welcome to the forums :)
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Thank you!
 
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Locally there wasn't much, just small game sections in WH Smith or Woolworths before places like Tesco ever stocked games.

I'll always remember the big box PC stuff in Smiths, hours reading the back covers of Grand Prix 2, Transport Tycoon Deluxe and other Microprose Powerplus stuff.

We used to have to head to Hamilton or East Kilbride for dedicated games shops, bought loads in Electronics Boutique in EK; have great memories of loads of late 90's PS1 and Saturn era stuff in EK before Game took over; by the time the Xbox 360 era came around though it was pretty much online only buying.
 
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