1995 Silicon Valley Computer Store Invited "Older People" To Try Computers
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ต.ค. 2023
- The Incredible Universe Superstore also known as "Incredible Universe," was a massive electronics and appliance retail chain. This store was in the Silicon Valley. It opened in 1992. It was founded by Tandy Corporation who also owned RadioShack at the time. The Incredible Universe was a sprawling, warehouse-sized store.
The store was enormous, around 185,000 square feet. The vast floor space allowed it to carry an extensive selection of products, from consumer electronics and home appliances to computer hardware and software.
Incredible Universe offered a huge range of products including televisions, computers, video games, appliances, and more. The store aimed to be a one-stop-shop for all electronics and appliance needs, allowing customers to see and compare a vast range of products in one place.
The store was designed to provide an engaging and interactive shopping experience. It had demo areas where customers could test and try out products as well as entertainment zones for kids and adults alike. Incredible Universe put a strong emphasis on customer service with a large staff of knowledgeable sales associates to assist customers.
This sequence was filmed in about 45 minutes in 1995 when my team went into the store to see what was happening. It was like being at the circus. My guess is that the average person spent at least $60. One helluva business.
I can remember that in those days it was exciting to buy any computer and to try to read the back of the boxes of software which all sounded like they were offering something that was a totally new world and made things easier. I know that commentators on my videos now debate whether things have gotten easier. They weren’t easier for me but I am much more able to do what I want to do and continue to make these videos because of the Internet and my computers and cell phone technologies - wireless of course.
Examples of the products available in the store included:
Televisions: A variety of televisions, including CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) TVs, were available in different sizes and brands. This was before the era of flat-screen TVs, so most of the models available were bulkier and heavier than what we are used to today.
Computers: Desktop computers and laptops from brands like Apple, IBM, and Compaq were available, often running on operating systems such as MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, or the Macintosh System 7. These computers typically featured Intel 386 or 486 processors and had limited storage and RAM compared to modern systems.
Video Game Consoles: Popular gaming consoles of the time included the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), and the Atari Jaguar. These consoles featured iconic games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario World, and Street Fighter II.
CD Players and Audio Systems: CD players were a popular technology in the early 1990s, as the format was still relatively new and gaining popularity. Incredible Universe offered a range of CD players, stereo systems, and portable CD players like the Sony Discman.
VCRs and Camcorders: VHS tapes were the primary format for home video, so VCRs (Video Cassette Recorders) were in high demand. Camcorders that used VHS or smaller VHS-C tapes were also popular for recording home videos.
Cellular Phones: Early mobile phones, like the Motorola MicroTAC and Nokia 1011, were available in the store. These cell phones were larger and more expensive than today's smartphones, and they had limited functionality, often only supporting voice calls and basic text messaging.
Home Appliances: A wide range of home appliances, such as refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, and microwave ovens, were available from popular brands like GE, Whirlpool, and Kenmore.
Software: Computer software, including productivity tools like Microsoft Office, and early computer games like Myst, were available on floppy disks or CDs.
Despite the initial hype and success, Incredible Universe faced financial difficulties due to its massive size, high operating costs, and increasing competition from other electronics retailers. In 1996 Tandy sold the chain to Fry's Electronics, which rebranded some of the stores as Fry’s.
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computer store near me. laptop store near me.
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David Hoffman filmmaker
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More 1995 computer store film - th-cam.com/video/QHgBSpKV51g/w-d-xo.html
This was 1994
Ain't gonna lie, I thought computers were a waste of money in 1995. About to retire as a systems administrator soon 😂
I'm a retired systems administrator and thought the same, but then we discovered an even bigger waste, the cell phone, so now computers are looking a whole lot better.
System and Network administrator myself. Currently administrator and IBM Power 8 running AS/400 as well as windows. The IBM is built like a tank. Started on the tail end of XP. XP just printed money back then for the techs. Not to mention you had a big difference in performance year after back then. Brings back memories of computer stores back in the day. Half the fun was browsing the store.
Watching this on my phone in 2023. We've come a long way.
Now lovely to go back to the world when we had shops. It was so nice. I loved going to shop and drooling over the real equipment seeing it plugged in and running. Department stores like this were amazing
I agree 100 percent. I really miss the old days. I can't imagine being a kid growing up today. Sad.
Circuit city
@@antimonyparadox6996
And CompUSA
Yeah but computers now are so technologically mature there's no fun whatsoever. A case with no drive bays, absurd amounts of memory, storage, graphics, with no real idea of what does what anymore. They're just appliances, like a dryer or washing machine.
Which one has the prettiest lights? That's the one you buy and they all work the same.
I miss comparing CD-RW to flopticals and SCSI drives and which chipset works best with which memory and finding the right network card, etc... all useless skills these days!
I will never forget in the early 90's trying to convince my boss that we needed new computers as our two-year old computer already used up all the data and storage. He could not get over how quickly computers depreciated. He said, "when I buy a car, I expect it to last 10 years, ... when I buy a pair of shoes, I expect them to last two years ..." Poor guy. On and on he went. Finally, we got our new computers. 😂
The first two guys perfectly demonstrate the costal and rural NorCal divide. It's a forgotten part of California, even among Californians.
It's crazy how similar farmers are across the nation. I live in rural Iowa and these guys have the same wholesome personality as the farmers here.
When you hear the computer specs it sounds like the Stone Age.
I remember going to this exact Incredible Universe store and seeing this exact sales rep. It was a magical time and a magical age. 1995 was probably the best year ever to be alive.
These videos are so wonderful! It brings back nastalgia, and gives perspective on how much things have changed. I was 9 yesrs old in 1995, and remember how mesmorizing our first computer was. We got a Hewlett-Packard with Windows 95 (I think it was 95..). Now, that bulky computer is likely in a landfill somewhere, and I have the equivalent technology in my hand as I "type" this.
Thank you, David for your content! I appreciate you so much!
Best channel on TH-cam!
This feels like a "backrooms" video, before it became abandoned. Such happiness from such simpler times
Man these take me back
160MB hard drive and 4MB RAM lol, that's crazy to think about. Throughout my life 4GB of RAM has been pretty much bare minimum.
lol😅
I'm GenZ and grew up with things having 100mb Ram or less.
Dial-Up was a normal thing.
TH-cam wasn't a thing.
CDs and DVDs were everywhere
Surprisingly the prices haven't changed that much! Really the prices are better now considering what you get now compared to then.
@@ThaTruFily Remember ZIP drives?
@@danusdragonfly6640 Never had one, used the built-in floppy slot or Cd tray :P
Hello David, I am 23 and I found your channel not too long ago and I love learning about all these things. Thank you so much for your work!
Thank you. Are you a subscriber?
David Hoffman filmmaker
As a guy born in 2001 who loves tech these kind of videos are one of my favourite
I worked for Tandy/Radio Shack from 1981 to 2001 in their regional repair center in Denver. I remember the Incredible Universe store in the south Denver metro area. I would get the overflow of the repair units before my shop absorbed their shop. The Denver area Incredible Universe along with another elsewhere were the only two that was profitable when Tandy/Radio Shack closed them down. That building was sold to Sears Holdings to be their At Home store where it still is today. I remember going through that store a few times. It was something quite radical at the time.
Wow! This is when I graduated high school. I remember getting my first “modern” computer that fall! Couldn’t afford that laser printer and ended up printing my freshman papers on an old dot matrix printer 🤣
My first PC was a Dell 486? I can't remember but it was slow.
Esp for 2k!? lol
It was horrible in hindsight but I was the coolest one on the block...
I bought our 1st computer somewhere in the early to mid 90s? But I hardly ever touched it, my wife a kids were on it constantly through the years, I just walked by everyday it as it sat in our living room! Though I think I do remember "Windows95" and of course AOL dial up, I did once have a "Maps" cd rom or whatever, that I messed with a few times, I also remember clicking on a website & seeing the 1st satellite image of my house & property! It was such a blast to see something like that back then, even printed it out in black & white to show all my buddies at work!🌎 lol 😂😂Thanks David for this new, but awesome old footage! Funny how just watching a really cool video like this one can take any of us straight back to a very exciting time! (Feels good for the soul!) Gotta Thank You for that as well David!✌
Growing up in the 1980’s we had a computer in our house my mother used for business. First time I went on the Internet was 1995..
That's the first year I went on the internet as well.
David Hoffman Filmmaker
Internet was in 1997
1997 not 95... Internet
I was a teenager and my friends parents were in the tech industry. It was 1995. Really they were developing the foundation for what was available by 1997
😂😂
Just 30 years ago.. good times.
Imagine 30 years from know.
From NOW
@@Bennz-km6kn
You forgot the too periods also🙂
$1900 in 1995 was like $4500 today. Thats a lot! 😬
yup that's why being a nice Apple Mac Studio with the upgrades for 4500 today does not bother me. Its a quality system that will easily last 7 or more years
Everything electronics related was super overpriced back in the day before competition really started pushing prices and margins down. Buying a PC in 1995 was pretty much a couple of months salary for your average person after taxes. Worst part is that those PC's were so slow and terrible even for the era lol. And with the rapid advances in technology they almost became obsolete within a year. My family got a close to 2k$ Compaq presario PC in 1995 too and I distinctly remember how slow that thing was even for current games at the time.
title is wrong 1994 not 95
Hi there David Hoffman film maker, thanks for sharing this same video of that computer mega store that long gone. It was the 90s. I guess the building just sits there over the years. They could use it as a restaurant or fun center lol or tair it down. I saw this building on an old episode of the Goldbergs lol. I still have my Sony discman in my bedroom desk, it works great I keep my stuff in good shape, that cd player is 27 years old. Lol
Matthew. This is a different version of the video I put up years ago at the computer store. New footage is here.
Thank you
David Hoffman filmmaker
@@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker ok I see 🙂
Great share big like one heck of a producer big ups buddy ❤❤❤
I worked at a local custom computer place in about 1993, in an old house downtown in my town. I'll always remember one of the owner partners who built hard drives for people, saying there's no way anyone will ever need one whole gig of memory!
funny :P 1 gb ram became pretty regular for gaming even as early as the early 00s.
The look the customer gives the employee at 2:37... Just in complete awe. Its like hes looking at the guy and wondering when he is going to say APRIL FOOLS or something..😂😂😂
Great stuff! I love watching these videos from the past about technology and how it has changed. I had my first machine built in 1999 for less than what the salesmen were quoting in this recording. My equipment went through a few upgrades and replacement to where it is today. As for now, going to a store with knowledgeable staff is getting harder to find these days. I was fortunate to find a shop with experienced technicians here recently. I remember how exciting it was to have a custom computer the way one wanted!
All this available Knowledge, yet the expertise is hard to find in an individual. Ironic!
@@posinker Sadly true!
Always love your content
I still remember our first ever computer, ironically in 1995. It was a gray/green Acer Aspire with the brand new Windows 95. It was incredible at the time. It came with a few games, including "Are you afraid of the Dark," and Jazz Jackrabbit."
-"$1900 for this?"
-"yeah but you get a mouse and a keyboard" 😄
Growing up and living in the south bay California most of my life I recall all the buzz about the Incredible Universe Superstore that I just had to check out. being a baby boomer myself I could not see what all the excitement was all about, finally at the turn of the 21st century I broke down and bought me a computer it was a Gateway computer I got it to help me with my dyslexia it came with 6 CD's one of them was Microsoft Words and a 1-year free AOL Internet. Being a layman when it came to computers, and the Internet I learned a lot on that Gateway computer. thanks for another😊 interesting video of the past David Hoffman.
That was great, knowledgeable, well-explained customer service.
I really appreciate this. Thanks
This seems more like '85
If you would have asked me what year I thought this was filmed, I would’ve said 1987.
Those were fun days when I worked in the Software Scene at Incredible Universes in Wilsonville, OR about 1993-95!
Lots of cutting edge tech was released then. Titles like Microsoft Bob! 🤣 But seriously, it was fun being on the front lines of electronics retail in those days.
That was interestingly kinda amusing...
oh how things have changed!
Thanks David 🎃👍
Smiles Respect
....AND Those Kids Created the Faster Processing for Our Phones.
She has good taste in printers. Lasers have stood the test of time
Almost everybody should be using a laser printer. Inkjets probably have their uses, but they constantly run out of ink and break. A laser printer you can just leave in the corner to gather dust for months, but will likely still work when you need to print out some random form.
1:50 ....during this time the students knew significantly more about Commuter than the teachers/schools, even today the digitalization of schools here in Germany is a complete disaster.
I got one in 1995. A Packard Bell 486 with 8 meg ram. A month later the Pentiums came out🙃 I'm still catching up now on the games i missed out in 97 to 2000
My first computer had only 1MB memory.
In 1989 I had a toshiba laptop with dual 5 1/4 floppy drives. One for dos the other for whatever program you needed to run. Good times !
Oh my god. I remember the thrill, as a kid, going into the Microsoft store. Holy cow! I remember how dark the store felt inside (I think the walls were black). SOOO much good nostalgia!
If this guys come store today in 2024 in 1995 they would be surprise price of computers today
It just depends how people adapt especially seniors. I mean it took a lot of time for my mom to teach my grandfather who is 91 now to use a computer and especially a smart phones. Compare that to his older brother who about to turn 94 who was able to learn faster and even uses Facebook at his age. It just depends on the person.
The older people in this video were either The Silent Generation or The Lost Generation depending on their birth year. The first guy in the hat may have been a Baby Boomer if he was in his forties in ‘95.
Can anyone explain why old computers and TVs, when recorded, always have static in the screens?
Wish i could explain it deeper yhan this but my simple understanding is it has to do with refresh speed on the moniter itself vs the shutter speed of the camera recording. If anyone sees this who knows differently please correct me.
@PWNSonTHEwii is pretty much right.
The monitor has what is called a refresh rate. That is essentially the number of pictures it tries to display per second. The camera is taking a number of pictures per second to make its video. These two rates are different, and not in synch. As the monitor is updating its pixels top to bottom to update the picture being displayed in that fraction of a second the camera is also taking pictures. So, essentially what you're seeing is the camera capturing that change (a change which is happening in a fraction of a second). The camera is not synchronized with the monitor and also is faster than the monitor, so it is not taking pictures when the monitor has finished updating what it wants to display, it is capturing images at a different rate which is why the camera captures what we see as a "blur" but is just the monitor updating the picture it is displaying.
As to why it doesn't happen anymore, well thats not totally true. We see it all the time when recording stuff. Think for instance a fan, or better yet, a helicopter. You dont see the blades because theyre spinning faster than the camera takes pictures, you see a blur, even if you were to pause the video at a particular frame. Anyways, why it doesn't happen on modern monitors and tvs: the refresh rate of the monitor is faster these days, and depending on the device faster than the camera takes pictures. So, you see less of the pixels changing and more of the updated picture, hence, no blur.
The computer monitor 'flashes' the information X amount of times per second, say 60 or 72, depending on the setting. The camera filming the computer has a shutter that opens and closes Y amount of times per second, say 24 or 30. So you have two things turning on and off at different speeds. Kind of like how your turn signal randomly does or doesn't match up to the car in front of you that also has its turn signal on. It's just a mismatch of on/off states.
@@brandonsmith9512 to add to this, you can easily see this phenomenon by recording LED lights, for example car headlights or taillights (on newer models) with your phone
I remember when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were going at it in the 80s. I never wanted a computer or a cellphone for years until after my travels and moving back home.
I finally broke down and got a cellphone, 2005?
I still don't like them. Lol I never liked video games, nor played them, although I love books, leathered bound to read 📚
AlanTuring I had a lot of respect for. Who was he? I have left it on comments many times.
this turned to fry's electronics later
We got our first computer (DELL) in 2010...I've regretted that choice often. 👻
2010? Your family was very late to the game, unless you're young and so are your parents. Most families had computer in the 1990's or at the very latest the early 2000's. I had a neighbor who had one in the early 1980's.
@@Danimal77 Im the parent...lol...we live in the sticks so computers weren't really that important.
1900 was very high price i think cars were around usd 10k back then.
What is a chair?
Cool footage, although a lot of weird closeups on people's mouths.
I decided to leave in what would normally be outtakes. That is where the cameraman zooms in to focus. We normally remove that. I didn't and posted it with all of those irritating zooms.
DAVID HOFFMAN filmmaker
Brun Oregon trail
I saw one in NJ. Got a ride there in 1995. Was overwhelmed but not impressed. Hubris. Bad retail idea.
In the 90s for anything PC, I shop[ed at CompUSA in NJ or when visiting otherwise in Manhattan as I lived in Brooklyn at the time, some instead at J&R PCs and audio-video gear, then B&H for in Manhattan (all those electronics and camera gear but not any CD-DVD that J&R was most specialized in but they closed early 2013.)
J&R and HMV, Tower Records, Wiz, Virgin Megastore for physical media for some more years till all those closed. No Circuit City or Best Buy, quite yet in the early 90s here.
@noblelies thought this was CompUSA from the red background paint on top of the walls
I've avoided tech from the begining, I hate it, I remember working in a RadioShack repair ctr in 1979, they sold a computer, I remember thinking, what good is this thing, the one computer tech made it say something which was kinda funny. I still hate computers.lol.
Can it run Crysis??
Is this for real?
The guy literally looks like he just jumped off the back of a tractor and walked into CompUSA. They couldn’t have shown more stereotypes if they tried!
he probably did come in off “the farm.” In 1995 Palo Alto wasn’t far from farmland at all, but there was already some good farm database software written for DOS and Windows ‘95.
tim dillion ? hmm
The way they act is juat cringe inducing for some reason lol
Nostalgic in a sense, but the lack of diversity is very uncomfortable to watch not going to lie. I had to stop after a minute.
as my description says, we filmed there for one evening in Palo Alto and filmed everybody who came into the store.
David Hoffman filmmaker
yeah … all the brown people lived 2 towns over in Mountain View back then. It’s changed slightly.
"BLACK HOLE SUN WON'T YOU COME"