Golden Triangle of PCs

Originally posted on xanga.

Back in the 90s, a golden triangle of PC shops popped in a place not so far from me.

The three PC shops were:
CompUSA
PC Club
Media Solutions

CompUSA was the big corporate place with the nice stuff, but to get a parallel cable for the printer, it'd cost your $30.

PC Club on the other hand was warehouse style store where you came in and didn't exactly know what was going on because there was stuff everywhere. But the parallel cable only cost $15. It was sorta like a mom and pop shop except they had like over 10 stores throughout the southland.

Media Solutions was a mom and pop as there was only one. It had the parallel cable for $5. The packaging was ghetto and the software they sold was in a plastic film. Even the books they had there was cheaper.

But like much of the rest of the PC industry, as the turn of the century came, the first to fall was Media Solutions. Maybe the huge computer margins of the 90s was so low that it wasn't worth it in the 00s.

CompUSA move to a mall across the way and eventually close as did many other CompUSAs in our area.

PC Club however kept chugging along until this summer. It no longer has any stores open.

Now, if I want a parallel cable, I can't get it for $5 anymore. I have to pay a premium at a Radio Shaq or worst, at a Best Buy. I could drive 20 miles away to a Fry's, but with gas prices, it wouldn't be worth the drive.

Penny pinching just isn't the same in the gas guzzling environment anymore.

Back to the golden triangle. Its all gone now. I can get my PC parts at a WalMart now! What a change. For the worst as a consumer.