A few weeks ago, I sat down with a friend of mine over beer, and he told me about his experiences working in a computer store in the 1990s. Our conversation made me realize that there is a large segment of the population under the age of 25 who have never heard of a “computer store” before: a store explicitly dedicated to selling computer hardware and software. The idea of visiting a brick’n'mortar building to purchase a video game, for folks that have grown up with Steam, must be a bizarre anachronism akin to inserting a Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia CD-ROM to look up the capitol of Finland.

What was it like to browse physical shelves of new and used computer games? What happened behind the scenes, among the distributors, store managers and salespeople? How did salespeople persuade customers to buy expensive computer hardware like the Amiga 500, Tandy 1000 and IBM PS/1? In this article, my friend Ray – a father of two and a long time video game devotee – tells me about what it was like working as a hardware and software salesman during the peak of the modern computer revolution in Western Canada.

A Typical Computer Store in 1994

Although we did not know one another at the time, I often visited the store that Ray worked at in the mid-90′s. I was a teenager, and CompuCentre was the place to go to buy computer games. A wallet full of birthday cash – usually $60 or $80 – meant that I could afford one new AAA release, or two budget/bargain-bin games (usually I opted for the former). The store entrance was eerily similar to the “Software Excess” parody in Space Quest IV. I remember CompuCentre having an open floorplan: hardware kiosks and displays were scattered around the centre of the space, and the walls were lined with wire racks that showcased hundreds of software titles. Being an IBM user meant that I would not only pay no attention to the Amiga and Apple sections, but actively avoid them.

Ray: Besides a section of the store that was for all the gaming consoles, it was otherwise divided into computer sections, so you had the IBM software, the Commodore section, and even a little section for Mac.  People didn’t seem to buy computers to play games explicitly, however, the types of games available for a computer could influence someone who hadn’t decided on which computer to buy.  That’s even how I bought my own first computer.  It was an Amstrad that I bought from The Brick.  While my first experience was with a Commodore PET that used a cassette drive to save my work, it wasn’t until a few years later that I was able to buy my own.  I bought the Amstrad solely because it could play some of the games I had seen at school.  I wasn’t too interested in word processing or graphic design.

The computer buyers were generally either the creative artist who leaned towards the Amiga – the music composition software abilities were greatly sought in particular, or the at home professional who wanted a business computer.  I don’t remember anyone who thought of a computer as being so dynamic in that it could be used for work and games.

Ray:On the computer side, we primarily sold the Amiga and the IBM PS/1.  There were other models but those were the main.  Amiga was set up to be the go to machine if you had a lot of creative applications, like music composition or drawing (sort of where the Apple machines are niched now).  The PS/1′s were set up as the workhorse.  Sure it could do stuff the Amiga could, but where the Amiga was prettier (with regards to sound or colours or general creativeness), the PS/1 had the more necessary applications like Tax packages, word processing, spreadsheets…stuff like that.  It seemed that games for the computer were mostly an afterthought, or a bell and whistle that was nice, but not necessary.  At the time, the Internet mostly consisted of dialup modems, BBSes (bulletin board systems) and chat rooms.  Not near as fancy as we have today.  I remember many conversations where I tried to explain how the machines were different but both could access the same “cyberspace”.