As Fred Cisin writes:
"Yes, as usual, all such claims are meaningless without term definitions.
What Murray was referring to was arguably the first PERSONAL computer
store, and run as a retail storefront.
IBM did do some retail sales, although they might not have called it
"retail", out of their building.
Even "first" and "store" could use some restrictive definition:
Do sales out of a living room count?
garage?
corner of another kind of store?
(there already seems to be an exclusion of mail-order)
If a grocery store clears space in an aisle does that count?
Did Ed Roberts have a front counter, and handle walk-in?
Assembled working systems? or do kits count?
Signing lease?
Acquiring retail inventory?
Opening of doors to the public?
First retail sale?
First Order? or
First Delivery?"
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What I was attempting to say in my post was that the first computer
store was a retail outlet that sold MICROCOMPUTERS, and/or PERSONAL
computers and/or SMALL computers all we could carry around without
doing physical detriment to one’s self.[I shopped at Canada's first
computer store on 44 Eglinton West, Toronto, and to this day I'm not
sure of the name or date it started] I realize there’s many a
definition of what one could call a computer store but I would
describe it as a ‘unique’ place that sold computers exculsively as
I’ve described herein.
We’re talking only a limited number of machines available as of
mid-1975. (Please refer to my book: A Historical Research Guide to the
Microcomputer: Small Computers of a Bygone Era, p. 43.) Prior, one had
mail-order option only or as major computer corporations, IBM, DEC,
etc., selling ‘computers’ or computer parts/peripherals as a retail
operation in name only as Fred describes above. Hobbyists as far as I
know didn’t buy from IBM or DEC(well, maybe rich ones bought their
mini-computers) and when computer stores opened hobbyists had a
hand-holding-entity to further their interest in a new industry. This
changed somewhat when Tandy(Radio Shack), et al. came on the scene.
Happy computing.
Murray :)
