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Circuit City Saga — Parallax Forums

Circuit City Saga

ercoerco Posts: 20,256
in General Discussion
A new look at the rise & fall of CC. Not the first or last company whose downfall was catering to Wall St. Can a similar video about Radio Shack be far behind?

Comments

  • Keith YoungKeith Young Posts: 569
    I just found this guys videos a couple days ago.

    It's pretty amazing how a wrong turn can cost so much.
  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    edited 2016-10-06 23:34
    Circuit City and CompUSA were the two places to go to for people who like to put together their own computer system. I started out in the 90s with mail order computer parts, through Tiger, Global and others. The days are gone when I travel 80 or 100 miles round trip to pick up the much needed components or perephrial's. Mail order is cheaper and easier, but I still like a hands-on evaluation before purchasing.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    I spent lots of time & $$$ at CompUSA, where I bought my first PC circa 1996, a Packard Bell (yeah, NOW I know) 233 MHz Pentium with MMX! Wondered how I'd ever fill that 3.2GB HDD off my 56K modem. :)

    Packard Bell topped this top ten list of worst computers ever!

  • hatallicahatallica Posts: 175
    Keith Young wrote: »
    It's pretty amazing how a wrong turn can cost so much.

    They worked hard at making a sequence of wrong turns and then doubling down on bad decisions.

    Wall Street gets a bad rap (sometimes). Every company caters to its shareholders (public or private). Good leadership acknowledges the importance of the dashboard, but recognizes that the dashboard cannot make the driving decisions. If the CEO compensation is strongly tied to stock price, then the dashboard is probably driving, because you get what you reward.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2016-10-07 14:25
    I was the Technical Manager for four CompUSA stores in Atlanta 1990-1995. I can attest to the returns of Packard Bell. About 50% of the 286's came back and the customer upgraded to an AST 386, (I was pushing AST at the time). In the early 90's, CompUSA built their own system, Compudyne. It was built from scratch per each order. One pre Christmas week, we built 125 units in one day, in one store! I still have two in working order for some old EPROM programmers.

    I saw many companies come and go. Packard Bell, AST, Epson computers, Hyundai computers. We were the only company selling Dell retail, but Dell pulled that after two years.

    In the early days, it was a pleasure to work there, it was tech talk with nerds all the time. By 1994-1995, it was dealing with uninformed people asking "this company is sell this for this much, can you beat it". That ended my 5 years in retail.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    No mention of how the arrival of internet sales affected "brick and mortar" stores like Circuit City and such.

    Oh boy, the Apple Lisa.

    Amazing machine for the day. My friend bought one. It cost more than my entire years salary the year before! It had hardware failures that caused him to have to return it three or four times. I forget what exactly. After which he got his money back. It's amazing Apple is still a business.

    I'm amazed that Packard Bell could even make a more horrible machine that the original IBM PC.

    They deserve credit for that!
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    Publison wrote: »
    We were the only company selling Dell retail, but Dell pulled that after two years.

    I don't know about anyone else, but Fry's Electronics sells Dell computers on their showroom floor.

  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    Chris Savage wrote: »
    Publison wrote: »
    We were the only company selling Dell retail, but Dell pulled that after two years.

    I don't know about anyone else, but Fry's Electronics sells Dell computers on their showroom floor.

    Refurbished, or new? We don't have a Fry's close on the East Coast.


  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    erco wrote: »
    CompUSA, where I bought my first PC circa 1996, a Packard Bell (yeah, NOW I know) 233 MHz Pentium with MMX! Wondered how I'd ever fill that 3.2GB HDD off my 56K modem. :)

    My first IBM PC cir. early 90s, just shows how qiuck tech was outdated. I remember having storage space problems back then, with a 85mb HD, Windows 3.1 took nearly half of that. Should have kept out of bone yard though, I may have got my money back today.

    http://m.ebay.com/itm/IBM-PS-1-486SX-25-2MB-RAM-85MB-HDD-Beautiful-History-V-I-N-T-A-G-E-/281462638123
    Mike's IBM PS_1 Computer.jpg
    608 x 630 - 54K
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    Publison wrote: »
    Refurbished, or new? We don't have a Fry's close on the East Coast.

    New. Even the Alienware line.

  • abecedarianabecedarian Posts: 312
    edited 2016-10-08 02:21
    Chris Savage wrote: »
    Publison wrote: »
    Refurbished, or new? We don't have a Fry's close on the East Coast.

    New. Even the Alienware line.

    *edit - never mind.

    Visit frys.com and search Dell.
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,185
    abecedarian wrote: »
    Chris Savage wrote: »
    Publison wrote: »
    Refurbished, or new? We don't have a Fry's close on the East Coast.

    New. Even the Alienware line.

    *edit - never mind.

    Visit frys.com and search Dell.

    So does Micro Center. That's where I got my laptop serviced a while ago, he needed a new date/time/ and stuff battery, and it was placed in a bad location.
    -
    So erco why are your robots traveling out of the country again?
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    For those interested in the history of Circuit City I found an ebook on Amazon a while ago. It was written by the son of the founder who became the CEO. The book is called "from good to great to gone". Fascinating book!!
  • blittledblittled Posts: 681
    edited 2016-10-12 00:47
    I bought my Dell Laptop from Staples. Up in NW Pa and Ohio we had another big box electronic store Sun Electronics. They had terrible business ethics. I heard horror stories of refurbished PCs sold as new and even PC with parts such as hard drives removed! Ironically the Sun Electronics store in Erie PA was replaced with Best Buy :)

    I think HHGreg is another store to be wary of. Their flyers have items with no name brands or specs with them only a low price. Chinese knockoffs? BTW in Erie HHGreg is where Circuit City was.
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