Nose Gear Up Landing at Fort Lauderdale Executive

CompUSA ftw
Remember Soft Warehouse? Amazing place late ‘80’s into ‘91, I couldn’t wait to give them my money. Then they changed their name to CompUSA.

NewEgg has been very good to me, I’d use them again in a second.

In 1986 I built my Dream Computer. An 80286 running at 8mhz in Turbo mode. 20mb hard drive, a whooping 640kbs of memory and the latest EGA monitor. My friends would come over and stare at it.
 
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Remember Soft Warehouse? Amazing place late ‘80’s into ‘91, I couldn’t wait to give them my money. Then they changed their name to CompUSA.

NewEgg has been very good to me, I’d use them again in a second.

In 1986 I built my Dream Computer. An 80286 running at 8mhz in Turbo mode. 20mb hard drive, a whooping 640kbs of memory and the latest EGA monitor. My friends would come over and stare at it.

I mind me of a time in ‘80 or so when I got a Hayes Micromodem for my Apple ][+ and an account to “The Source”.

A floppy that came with the modem had a bunch of numbers to these “bulletin board systems”. I was like “what’s this all about?” First couple of numbers were dead, but found one that connected. Thus started my years long affair with BBS systems.
 
Cows ate it.

Imma old fart too…my computers:

PMC-80 (TRS-80 clone)
Apple ][+ (later fully tricked out w/z80 card and lots of extras)
Epson QX-10 (CP/M machine)
IBM PS/2 Model 50
Zeos PC clone
Gateway PC clone
From there I started building my own systems. 1st one was a very generic mobo, next one I can’t remember, then a Gigabyte mobo, which lasted 10+ years and still runs in my workshop.

Current one is a MSI X99 mobo, all SSD setup with twin GPUs running in SLI.

Prebuilt PCs these days are utter & complete garbage. Very high mortality rate and chock full of bloat ware. I refuse to either build one for people or to recommend a brand. No good can come from it because you’ll either be on the hook for 24/7 support or get blamed when the POS store bought inevitably dies.

I use Macs for laptops because the last thing I want to do is futz with one on the road. They won’t seem to die….I’ve have 4, a G4 PowerBook, a 2009 Intel Powerbook, a 2013 Air, and the very last intel PowerBook that Apple made last year. They all still work.

The guy who founded Zeos made a buttload. Then he began buying up the cool antique airplanes.
 
The guy who founded Zeos made a buttload. Then he began buying up the cool antique airplanes.

Truth be told, if I came into an insane amount of money, I’d do the same, except I’d rescue more prozaic aircraft like 152s and Beech Sierras. They’re like kittens…you can’t adopt just one.
 
I marshalled, fueled, and threw bags for the whole Frys fleet at one point. Weird stores, weird family. I remember the first time they brought the 747SP into SJC and put a bunch of people on it for a booze cruise and were out flying so low over the coast that people reported an aircraft accident. When they got back an hour or so later someone was so drunk they fell off the airstair and were injured very badly. Putting the Sabre in the hangar was the hardest tow job you did. I drove Randy's Ferrari to an auto detailer once.

Their fleet at the time if I'm not forgetting any was:
Cubcrafters PA-18 on floats
V35A bonanza
Twin Otter on floats
King Air 350
Sabreliner 60
G-IISP
Boeing 727
B747SP

I know at one point they added a second Sabre and a G-IV. I don't think the 747SP lasted very long. They liked Sabreliners because their dad flew them in the air force.

I don't miss the stores. Central computer is still around and they're much better anyway.
I'm curious of your perspective regarding their MX as someone familiar with their operation at their home base, as well as you being an A/P, IA and ATP. Does my impression, that I stated earlier in this thread, match what you saw? I'm not looking to stir up any nonsense, just wondering if what I saw/experienced was smoke and mirrors. TIA
 
I've never had a bad experience with New Egg, Fry's and New Egg are pretty much what I used for everything. Onetime they sent me a box that had 2 CPUs and selling one paid for my next few parts LOL. That's the only time they've ever screwed up with me, and I benefitted.

Amazon I had 3 issues in a row with 3 different sellers and lost all trust. Obviously a crap shoot with their retailers.
 
Remember Soft Warehouse? Amazing place late ‘80’s into ‘91, I couldn’t wait to give them my money. Then they changed their name to CompUSA.
My man. Go over to Farmers Branch on a Saturday to huddle with other horrible nerds, maybe spend an hour looking at video games and the new Gravis Advanced joystick (serial or PS2 connectors). Our first 286 came from there.
 
I'm curious of your perspective regarding their MX as someone familiar with their operation at their home base, as well as you being an A/P, IA and ATP. Does my impression, that I stated earlier in this thread, match what you saw? I'm not looking to stir up any nonsense, just wondering if what I saw/experienced was smoke and mirrors. TIA

I wasn't a mechanic yet when I worked there but I can tell you that those airplanes were as close to spotless as most of the brand new megajets we got in. If expense was spared I couldn't tell.

They had a group of pilots who would fly anything they had, I think. The aforementioned Jack was the FE on the B727 and 747SP but I also saw him fly the King Air and the Sabre on occasion. I couldn't tell you how their department was arranged or who did the MX, though. The 727 and 747 lived at MCC, the Sabre, the King Air, bonanza and cub were hangared with us, the Twin Otter was in the southeast to serve the island and I have no idea where the G-II lived, Stockton maybe? We had a charter department and the G-II, King Air, Sabre, and the 727 were offered through it I think, SJC didn't have much hangar space so most of our airplanes were hangared elsewhere.
 
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