just brew it! wrote:derFunkenstein wrote:I thought you were going to start a catsup-based business
Or canned lab-grown meat.
Those two might actually go together.
Personal computing discussed
Moderators: askfranklin, renee, emkubed, Captain Ned
just brew it! wrote:derFunkenstein wrote:I thought you were going to start a catsup-based business
Or canned lab-grown meat.
Arvald wrote:Closed up in Canada years ago... reopened as the The Source by Circuit City. When Circuit City went down they were bought out by Bell Canada and now run as just The Source.
derFunkenstein wrote:just brew it! wrote:derFunkenstein wrote:I thought you were going to start a catsup-based business
Or canned lab-grown meat.
Those two might actually go together.
whm1974 wrote:So which stores now still sell the old school components? Or do you have to buy everything online now?
TwistedKestrel wrote:I'll always remember the Tandy 1000 HX... I still hear the SQ1 theme in Tandy soundArvald wrote:Closed up in Canada years ago... reopened as the The Source by Circuit City. When Circuit City went down they were bought out by Bell Canada and now run as just The Source.
I dunno how I forgot about that... that's kinda weird. I think it was assumed at the time they'd be converted to Bell stores or something, but that never happened
BIF wrote:What was their brand of stereo components...Optima? Optimal? Optimus (not Prime)?
I ended up buying a JVC.
Had Radio Shack rechargeable batteries for the longest time, though was never a member of "The Battery Club". Radio Shack is going the way of the poor dumb Dodo, unable to adapt to a changing world.
CompUSA (and in its reincarnation as a TigerDirect retail store), just simply didn't DESERVE to survive. My problem with CUSA/TDRetail was that they spent more time marking up cheaper components and apparently making up for that by giving the hard-sell on their stupid, useless extended warranty and not enough time stocking parts for the enthusiast. They also had dozens of crappy TV models.
I think CompUSA's death could have been avoided.
Circuit City, on the other hand, should have been closed for fraudulent practices. This bunch of snakes tried to swindle their customers with the DIVX DVD standard, which was basically a movie rental scam. You buy a movie on DVD, at a somewhat discounted price; then can play it on your "special" Circuit City DIVX DVD player for 3 days (I think). After that time, the DVD would "lock", and if you wanted to watch it again, you'd have to somehow make a payment and "unlock" your disc. Supposedly all done through the DIVX DVD player via its phone line connection for authorizations.
So I bought one of these, being completely unaware of what DIVX was. I thought it was like "Dolby" or "SRS"; a feature. But instead, it was a payment plan! I learned this when I got the unit home and read the owner's manual, and I decided to box up the unit and take it back to the store. When I tried to return the player the very next day, the Circuit City staff kept trying to get me to keep the player. I had to talk to 3 people and finally the store manager.
At one point, the manager offered me a cash settlement to keep the player, saying that I could still use the player to play regular DVDs, and just don't buy DIVX discs. This is when I knew that Circuit City had a major problem on its hands, because they must have been under orders to avoid refunding DIVX players in order to keep sales numbers artificially high. It also creeped me out, so I told them I would only accept a refund or else I would have to call my credit card company and dispute the charge.
At this point, they relented and issued me a refund, which (if memory serves) I promptly took to Walmart.
Walmart is still in business, and Circuit City is not.
whm1974 wrote:I wonder how many DIVX and disc players got sold? I remember there was big campaign warning people about buying these things by the EFF and various consumer groups at the time.
About 200,000 Divx players have been sold to consumers. Divx owners could buy DVD movies on a disposable disc for about $5 and play them during a 48-hour period. They could then throw away the disc or buy the movie for an additional fee. Divx players also play conventional DVD movies.
Divx also raised privacy concerns because it required consumers to hook their players up to a phone line and provide a credit card number so that the company could charge them for the number of times they watched a movie after the original 48-hour rental period. Consumers also had the option of buying the movie outright.
To compensate consumers who have paid more for the Divx feature, Divx will offer a $100 cash rebate to consumers who purchased Divx players before the Wednesday announcement. Retailers are expected to cut Divx movie prices in half and to slash prices on Divx players. Divx will keep its server up until June 30, 2001, for Divx owners who wish to play their movies until then.
In a nutshell, Divx is--or was--a pay-per-view variation of DVD introduced late last year by Circuit City. Today, Divx ceased operations, partly because of a lack of competitively priced players, partly because of a dearth of hot Divx movie titles, and mainly because of a consumer backlash which can only be compared to the reaction to New Coke.
whm1974 wrote:I thought way more than $100 million was lost by the DIVX/CircuitCity group over this. You know, I ran across a few of those DIVX discs back in my pirating days that I tried to copy/rip but no such luck. I guess since there were not that many of these discs sold and every movie that was on them were also available on regular DVDs anyway, that nobody even tried to break DIVX? I guess it wasn't worth the trouble...
Note, I no longer do not pirate anything anymore, I also don't condone doing anyone doing it either.
BIF wrote:What was their brand of stereo components...Optima? Optimal? Optimus (not Prime)?
ludi wrote:BIF wrote:What was their brand of stereo components...Optima? Optimal? Optimus (not Prime)?
I still have an Optimus four-channel ProLogic receiver that I got during my aforementioned workdays at a RadioShack. It is, in fact, a rebadged Pioneer built just a few short years before Pioneer stopped building their excellent home audio product line (including the highly-regarded Reference series components) and then, in a fit of pique, started flooding the market with junk car audio components that even Magnavox would have been ashamed to sell. It's only been recently that they've tried to undig some of that hole.
In any case, the receiver was dumped on us by someone who seriously heat-damaged the front panel in a way that jammed the motorized volume control knob, and who then refused both the repair estimate from the Tandy Service Center AND the unit. At the time, one of the benefits of working for RadioShack was being able to order repair parts from the Tandy service catalog at cost, so I repaired the damaged pieces and got a replacement remote control for, in total, about a third of the unit's retail MSRP. The ProLogic feature is nearly worthless now and I eventually had to replace the main power supply capacitors, but it still remains a very good stereo receiver.
DIVX (Digital Video Express) was an unsuccessful attempt by Circuit City and the entertainment law firm Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca and Fischer to create an alternative to video rental in the United States.
NovusBogus wrote:I managed to miss the whole DIVX thing, and only realized many years later that the thing everyone was complaining about had nothing at all to do with the popular codec suite.
Anyway, from the Wikipedia article...DIVX (Digital Video Express) was an unsuccessful attempt by Circuit City and the entertainment law firm Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca and Fischer to create an alternative to video rental in the United States.
A pack of rabid lawyers playing at business? Doomed from the start.
whm1974 wrote:In addition to the various consumer groups, environmentalist groups also raised a big fess over this as well. Didn't want landfills becoming full with discarded DIVX discs.
just brew it! wrote:https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kwxngw/inside-the-weird-world-of-aol-disc-collecting-511
just brew it! wrote:https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kwxngw/inside-the-weird-world-of-aol-disc-collecting-511
Vrock wrote:It's a shame, but you don't have to be smart to use technology any more, and there isn't enough demand among hobbyists for rheostats, resistors, capacitors, and diodes to keep the chain afloat (again, because tech has changed). Tech has become a commodity, so a store specializing in commodities has no purpose. I miss the days when any idiot couldn't just log on to the internet.
bfg-9000 wrote:Even Home Depot now carries 3D printers and filament, along with dog food and car batteries.
Captain Ned wrote:The ONLY reason I go to my local Home Depot, since Lowe's is much closer, is for the hot dog stand where I can get a foot-long big fat chili dog for $3.50.
I once asked Lowe's about this and they claimed that local zoning prohibited them from installing their own hot dog stand.
derFunkenstein wrote:Costco's food court is pretty darn tasty, I'll give you that.