What became of your Amiga 'shop'?

[DaveMB]

Purchased my first Atari 520ST and my Amiga 500 from a shop called Tomorrow's World.

Unfortunately it's now empty

[Darksun777]

Inspired by this thread i rembered my favourite Amiga Games Store of early 90's...today it has changed into a -movie Cinema

[Axxy]

Originally Posted by EnglishRob

I remember a couple of shops near me when I had an Amiga...

Data Deal in Paignton which started on Winner Street then a few years later moved closer to the town centre (although IIRC around this time they'd gone onto doing PC stuff).

In Torquay there was another computer shop, can't remember the name but it was on Castle Circus in Torquay. They gave a friend and me a demo of the CDTV when it first came out and then a few years later tried to sell me a Megadrive and Mega CD which were the 'next big thing'. I always remember thinking the guy was a bit of a pressure salesman.

I remember Data Deal in Paignton, not quite sure about the one on Castle Circus though. Seem to remember a computer shop in Torre as well. Another one I remember using was in St Marychurch. A fairly large shop that sold hardware/software, PD and I think also mail order stuff. Can't remember what the shop was called, but I generally used it for buying bulk blank disks/PD etc. Small world...

[alewis]

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

Google maps and streetview are brilliant so I shall use it to show everybody what I can remember about the good old days when the amiga and other 8bit and 16bit machines were ruling the roost

On on we go on this tour of... retroness or whatever you want to call it lol .
Who here remembers "Brian Fowler Computers"?... Well yes he was Exeter's amiga outlet. I dont have alot to say about this chap other than he was a very grumpy bloke indeed!, this was around near the end of the amigas commercial life so maybe thats why he was so downbeat? This is the chap that had a pile of custom amiga 1200's in 5 1/4 bay format made by a company called "Index Amiga Corp" I tried in vain to get one off him but the sod decided to throw one on the floor and stamp on it rather than take my money. I guess he was doing me some favour or something? I dont know lol. The problem is now I have forgotten exactly where he was based? it along this street on the right hand side afaik:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&so...,0.000687&z=21

Knew Brian reasonably well from ICPUG days, he and I often argued about the 'durabillity' of Syquest removable drives. Was in Devon sometime in the early 90's so popped in to see him, and he was, um, as you described him even then. He was complaining about being unable to compete with PC World on price, and people not coming back to shop. Personally, I think his customer attitude probably had more to do with it. But I can sympathise with anyone who depended on it for a living. A lot of the older ICPUG fraternity were a bit grumpy, or so it seemed to us young 'uns. Same in amateur radio, so it must be an age thing... thank feck I am 47 going on 33!

Just googled Brian Fowler Computing, and he is still going

http://brianfowler.co.uk/

[FOL]

Bit late, but heres my local (one and only) computer shop.
Home Computers Plc was the name and my father owned it.

Good times.













It later became a plant hire shop, then a PC repair shop.

[s2325]

updated photos:

[edd_jedi]

Great thread! My local was called "Total Computing" on Station Road in Poole, Dorset. It opened in around 1992, and closed in about 1996. It started out as a general computing shop selling both console and computer games, but all of their console stock was stolen in a raid soon after opening and from then on they focused on the PC and Amiga.

I worked there during the summer of '95 using my own Amiga 1200 to format second hand floppy disks for them in return for store credit to buy games The shop was owned (or managed at least) by a guy called Mike who had an Amiga 2000 and used to do Imagine rendering on it. I'd love to know where he ended up and if he's even given the Amiga a second thought since the store closed. As you can see in this photo from Google Maps it is now a surf shop.

I bought my own Amiga 1200 from Comet in 1994, which I never would have thought would be a dead business today!

[ascp]

Mine was called Tricom data, and was in another town from where I grew up. Now 20 years later I happen to live a 100 meter from where it was, but it closed a long time ago, and theres a kitchen shop there. Dark misty nights I can swear I hear the sound of floppy disks and the theme of shadow of the beast echoing over the neighbourhood, moonlight shining like thepale blue light of cathode ray tubes.

[LieutLaww]

Can't recall the name of the computer shop I spent most of my time and money in buying all the Amiga games I could get my hands on, also got my CD32 from there with the Full Motion Video expansion, sadly it is now a Angling and Game Centre shop

[Adrian Browne]

My local was called radleys. They were overpriced and a tight arsed bunch of bastards. They were literally the only game in town, I lived in a small town. I bought shadow of the beast there and other amiga games.

Considering what money grabbing sorts they were, it surprises me not at all, to recently hear that they were caught up in the HSBC banking enquiry, specifically alot of tax evasion.

My actual harware supplier was I think called microworld. It was a shop in the next town. It was actually at the back of a gents house. I got my a500 and my cd32 from him. Good times.

Power computing supplied my a1200 as microworld only dealt in pcs by this time.

Lol, microworld still exists and its still in the guys house https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0604...!6m1!1e1?hl=en

Radleys: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2702...!6m1!1e1?hl=en

[Weeto]

I didn't actually own an Amiga during the glory days, although I was still very interested in the Amiga and even though I owned stuff like a Spectrum, NES and Game Gear during the Amiga era, I used a store that carried a lot of Amiga stuff.

It was a store in Greenock, Scotland called Computer Corner. It started as Video Corner in the 80s, based just outside the town centre, near a railway station (the West Station area, near Greenock West station) and started putting Computer Corner signs up alongside the Video Corner signs and moved to the new Forum shopping centre in 1990 as Computer Corner, a completely computer and console orientated store. They moved in 1993 along the town and stayed for another couple of years before closing.

They were in three sites, the first was converted into housing in the late 90s, the second became part of a Next shop when they took over the Forum shopping centre (which was made up of small units, not full sized stores but was a covered mall and it was actually joined on what would turn into the Oak Mall in the mid 90s (the Oak Mall had been Hamilton Way previously and was a pedestrianised but open shopping street with no roof before being roofed over and becoming a fully fledged mall) and the final store was a nail salon or a female hairdresser the last I remember.

Greenock had a habit of having short lived computer stores (I haven't been back since I left the area 10 years ago) but I remember a G Force store (a small Glasgow chain that have a store in Union Street, Glasgow to this day) lasting for a few years in the Forum in the mid to late 90s, Woolies, Our Price, John Menzies and Boots all sold games and there were a couple of other minor stores around, including another in nearby Port Glasgow that carried quite a lot of what was even then becoming retro stuff in the mid to late 90s as they tended to have earlier systems and games.

I would find a treasure trove of games in Greenock later on when Cash Generator opened a store. I think the staff were pretty clueless when it came to pricing and I bought some incredible bargains in there around 2000-2005. A boxed Atari 2600, about 6 games and two joysticks? £5! An Amiga 1200 with dozens of games, joysticks and other stuff... £10!!! I even got an Amstrad PCW 16 (although it was £20) and I looked at a C64 which was in incredibly bad condition and didn't have anything with it and they wanted... £30 for it! I didn't buy it as it looked horrid, with mouldy looking marks and I'm not even sure it had all the relevant cabling. That was right before I got the Amiga for a tenner.

The staff used to say that only myself and another guy used to go for all the retro stuff but I tended to get the cream of it and he'd buy the junk I left over usually. I was quite friendly with some of the staff (I was in school with one of the guys) and he actually had the Amiga on the counter waiting for me as he saw me walking over from the bank across the road... and he pounced the moment I came in as he knew I was after an Amiga (particularly a A1200) at the time.

Unfortunately the disk drive eventually went on it but it works otherwise and I'm thinking of doing a bit of an upgrade on it. No accelerators or other expensive stuff like scan doublers but a new disk drive and a hard disk would be pretty good.

[Mrs Beanbag]

The current Glastonbridge offices:

we don't sell Amigas just yet... but maybe one day...

That is not our "boing pole"

[LeftyFPB]

My 500 came from a camera supply house on Zelda Road in Montgomery, Alabama. I can't remember the name of it. It looks like it's probably a Walgreens or CVS now.

[alexh]

We need to implement the UK "Blue Plaque" scheme for our former Computer shops

[Titler]

Here's one which wasn't "my" computer store, but was the place where a school friend got their Amiga from, and which always stuck in my mind that perhaps one day I would too... in the end I got mine second hand, and never actually bought anything from there, but when I'm back in Nottingham I still sometimes wander that way to feel nostalgic. And they're still going!

Originally they were Komari Computers I think.

Then they became "Beyond 2000"

Now they're B2K and still selling computer parts!

http://www.citikey.co.uk/display/beyond-2000-14W9Q

[Mark36]

Back in the lates 80's early 90's there were two I remember well in Swindon. One was Computer Cavern which is now a hairdressers called Knock Em Dead and the other was next to a joke shop called Giggles which is still trading today....the joke shop that is.

[s2325]

Shop next to abandoned Amiga shop near my house have big hole in roof from some short time...

[DisposableHero]

I was a retail whore, used several different shops plus Special Reserve. Most fondly remember Hacker's Alley in Eastbourne, which is now either a charity shop or a bookies. And there was one in the Enterprise Centre, the name of which escapes me, as does the exact location but it probably sells artisan breads or expensive clothes or something given that place.

[s2325]

Originally Posted by s2325

Here is second, abandoned shop in my city with Amiga games "Studio Komputerowe Amisoft" :

and in better times:

I saw today some old lady inside It may be paper collection centre or something similar AmiSoft was closed in ~1995

[s2325]

Small window at the top is open today. I hope they have new Amiga stuff like Chuck Rock 3, BC Kid 2, Kid Gloves 3, Twintris 2.