computer as selling goods
First computer manufacturers dependented still on the shipment of kits and equipment for the first personal computer, so it is worthwhile but soon, to sell computer on the table. In the following we consider a few pioneers who were the first in the field of computer shops. The first computer store: Initially, the computer kits and early personal computers were sold only by shipment or on the currently emerging fairs. But in June 1975 Dick Heiser had the idea, a business only for computers to open. He negotiated prices with MITS and opened the Arrowhead Computer Company - “The Computer Store”. The turnover exceeded his wildest expectations: the customers bought not only the Altair kits or his assembled computers, but they also paid several thousand dollars for expansions and books. Moreover, he repairs and counseled clients.
The first chain store: Paul Terell was a computer representative. He was attentive to MITS, and Ed Roberts was just searching for dealers to sell the Altair. Since dealers got the Altair 25 cheaper, Terell decided, to open a shop by himself. He opened his ship at the end of 1975. The business was in line with the well-known magazine ‘byte’, and so he named his store Byte Shop. Soon came forward interested, who wanted also to open a Byte Shop. Terell’s business grow within a few years to over 75 shops, a comprehensive chain store, which was the first in the personal computer business. The successful examples accounted school, and soon there were stores throughout North America, which sold computers over the shop table.
Computer Marketing: Soon it turned out that it was important for a company to have sales channels for their micro-computers. After a large number of computers were available, it was no longer enough, to ad the computer via magazines, and to offer in some computer shops. Precisely for this idea Computerland was founded, a chain store to sell the IMSAI computer. But there were two large companies, which were feared from small computer dealers because of their marketing network, which they could use for selling. Even if initially hesitant, because nobody could imagine, micro-computers in masses implement, ran the business surprisingly quickly. The 2 large companies were Commodore and Tandy. 1977 Commodore brought the PET - Personal Electronic Transactor, built by the developer of the 6502 Chuck Peddle, on the market. It was a computer in a metal casing, including monitor, keyboard and a few kilobytes of memory.
The PET had a bus to connect peripherals such as printers and disk drives. Even a tape drive to save the programs were installed. Moreover, the PET had an operating system on ROM, so that when the computer starts, it has not an operating system to load. The PET was not compatible with the then rapidly disseminated operating system CP / M by Gary Kildall. Nevertheless, the PET had, particularly in Europe a huge success, not least because company founder Jack Tramiel could use his previous office-based distribution network for marketing. On the PET followed by several developments, and early 80s Commodore reached with the VC-20 and C-64 a big success. These inexpensive home computers set new standards for the dissemination of ‘personal’ computers. In 1985, finally brought the Commodore Amiga to market a personal computer based on the Motorolla 68000-processor. The Amiga set new standards through its graphical user interface and multitasking operating system (which allows several programs to run in parallel, eg Calculations done in the background while word to use). But against the IBM-compatible, he could not enforced. The video section was an exception . He was used predominantly as home computer to play computer games.
Tandy brought after a conviction art by the participating engineers on the electronics chain store Radio Shack also to its own computer on the market. Tandy sold a relatively large group of mainly electronics and electronic toys in his store chains. 1978 the TRS-80 Model I was a trial basis in some Radio Shack stores. The TRS-80 Model I was based on a Z80 microprocessor and united keyboard, monitor, interfaces, and tape recorder in one housing. He was out of the box ready. It was CP/M operating system to use. As by PET also a BASIC programming language was available. Even the TRS-80 was a great success, and it was followed by models with disk drives, more memory, pixel graphics, and then to the early 80s the TRS-80 Color Computer, a home computer with Motorola’s 6809-processor, colorrastergraphic, 16 to 64 kilobytes Memory, BASIC in ROM and interfaces. A color computer costed 299 U.S. dollars. From this computer, was also an European variant: the Dragon computer. Technically, it was the same computer, only the Dragon had an Apple like enclosure. He was widesread in England and took quite common place in Germany even before the Commodore 64. There were also other manufacturers, while sales of personal computers to large chain stores or customers could fall back strains, but Commodore and Tandy were primarily examples.