Old computer shop in Manchester

[Firestar_3x]

Here we go. It wasn't a list for Microdirect but for Klone Computers (also long gone), another one I had forgotten all about. Anyways, here it is:

https://imgur.com/a/t1EdOXV [/IMG]

I hope that works

Just look on waybackmachine.

Used to visit MD a massive amount and spent a great chunk of cash with them, good prices but very variable service, was a sad day when they went under.

 

[GGizmo]

I missed the vast majority of the '90s gaming scene when you paid 25-30 for an Amiga, Atari ST, PC game which came in a big box and you sometimes got:-
a mouse mat
proper manual
poster
t-shirt
Keyboard layout
a sticker
Iron on patch
Now you're lucky if you get a panthlet
GAME in the Manchester arndale used to be good in the PC section until DVD case sized packaging for CD ROMS (When you still got a decent manual and a fiver for two games) but it gradually shrank until it became mostly PC gaming stuff, game cards and twenty CD Rom games.

At least we have STEAM and GOG for DOS based games(But they don't all work)

I remember back in the wild days of gaming on the Amiga (probably the same for the Atari ST), when people used to come by unmarked games, if they liked them they would purposely go out and buy the retail version. I remember when the art work were seen as a status symbol. When manuals actually had useful information in.

 

[MagicBoy]

Klone rings a bell, but I can't remember where they were...

 

[Robert]

The only one I remember in the 90s from Manchester were RAM Computers.
There are some on Google but definitely not the same company.
They also did a lot of Computer Fairs in the 90s.

Oh god, they were awful. Was going to shout micro direct…but guess it’s not that.

 

[MagicBoy]

Oh god, they were awful. Was going to shout micro direct…but guess it’s not that.

Nope, it's still Morgans.

It's the big curved building on the station approach to Piccadilly. Now a Noodle House/Subway I think.... : https://www.google.com/maps/@53.478...STQbP4SoMdawCHpd_y7mW!2e10!3e11!7i5376!8i2688

 

[wez130]

I always remember the model shop that was right near Morgans too!

 

[pcfarrar]

I worked for Microdirect in the tech support/returns department for about a year around 20 years ago. They were good to work for and I enjoyed the year I spent with them.

 

[[HB]Rugrat]

MD was the first place I saw the Lian Li case with the fake fishtank in the side... I will find that case one day... it will be mine.

 

[Policywatcher]

Hello,

This shouldn't go against competition rules as this shop is long gone. Years ago, mid 1990's, there was a computer shop just down the road from Manchester Piccadilly train station. It's where I picked up four x 1MB memory chips for my Amiga GVP hard drive. My dad also got his first PC from there, an old 386. Anyways, I can't remember the name of the shop and is annoying the hell out of me. Can anyone remember?

That will have been the old Byte Shop.

Originally they were a small chain, Byte Shop/ComputerLand.

The Manchester branch was definitely on Piccadilly Station Approach.

They went broke in the late '70's and were bought by the Comart Group, based in St Neots, Cambridgeshire.

Manchester
Glasgow
Nottingham
Birmingham
London

Comart also owned Xitan, a software distributor in Southampton, and Bytesoft Systems, a production control software developer in Leicester.

The Comart Group were acquired by Wiltshire-based Kode International PLC in the mid '80s.

KI sold the Byte Shop chain to another shop chain, SCC (Specialist Computer Centres) a year or two later, and itself fairly spectacular imploded around 1990. SCC had their HQ somewhere around Birmingham.

I lost track of SCC and the Byte Shops, but closure in the mid '90s would fit. It might JUST about be that some of the Byte Shop staff set up an independent in the same place for a year or so.

A few years later, SCC tried to revive the name, putting branches in various of the Office World stores
That wasn't successful either.

 

[Hagar]

Got my voodoo 2 from there.

Snap!