09-25-2006, 05:22 PM
Man those were some tough times....
I was a Apple Retail rep back then (around 2000/2001 or so) when BOTH Sears and Circuit City carried Macs. It was like two different worlds.
At Sears you had the "technology clueless" who thought the 233 iMacs and Blueberry iBooks were Kids toys and NOT real computers. The iBooks did attract kids. At least once a month, i would have to order and replace a Keyboard because a unsupervised Kid banged the sh!t out of the keyboard and broke one or more keys. Sears employees were more Mac friendly than Circuit City because Sears/Apple offered better Spiffs on the Macs.
Circuit City was tougher because you had a "slightly" more informed consumer but more choices and the "Megahertz Myth" was in full effect then...
Seems that most of the Mac displays were right across from the cheapest eMachines package. You had a 400mhz iMac with minimal Ram and a CD-rom for $1299 while right across the aisle was a 800mhz eMachine, double or more of Ram with a CD-RW for about $499 after rebates.
Apple helped sell a lot of Wintel computers due to those high prices back in the day.
I was a Apple Retail rep back then (around 2000/2001 or so) when BOTH Sears and Circuit City carried Macs. It was like two different worlds.
At Sears you had the "technology clueless" who thought the 233 iMacs and Blueberry iBooks were Kids toys and NOT real computers. The iBooks did attract kids. At least once a month, i would have to order and replace a Keyboard because a unsupervised Kid banged the sh!t out of the keyboard and broke one or more keys. Sears employees were more Mac friendly than Circuit City because Sears/Apple offered better Spiffs on the Macs.
Circuit City was tougher because you had a "slightly" more informed consumer but more choices and the "Megahertz Myth" was in full effect then...
Seems that most of the Mac displays were right across from the cheapest eMachines package. You had a 400mhz iMac with minimal Ram and a CD-rom for $1299 while right across the aisle was a 800mhz eMachine, double or more of Ram with a CD-RW for about $499 after rebates.
Apple helped sell a lot of Wintel computers due to those high prices back in the day.