Owning Computer Stores in the '90s 

What a great snapshot in time from someone who fully participated in the 1990s PC industry with original stories and supporting sources. Very interesting to see how he saw the opportunity and jumped on it, and then also recognized the changing tides which quickly followed.

Of course your dad is a well spoken, intelligent, technology enthusiast. Clearly the apple didn’t fall far from the tree! Great interview, it was great hearing your dad’s story!

I have great memories of computer Renaissance! When I was 10 or 12 I walked into one and they gave me a challenge to turn two broken laptops into one working laptop, I came back two hours later with a working laptop and they were so impressed they let me "intern" at their Computer Renaissance, I was mostly working for free because I was way too young to get paid, but they gave me some parts and whatnot every now and then and after I left I would come in every month or so and take their box of broken parts to build my PC's with. I was sooo sad when they went out of business. Very fond memories of Computer Renaissance. Another side tangent: I got my first computer at 8 years old, it was from Walmart and it was a 486DX2 from AST. It featured a Texas instruments 486 which I saw once and never saw again. Also I broke our computer a year later when I was 9 and fixed it a week later. My father worked as paper delivery driver for his second job and he would pick me up electronics every every trash day. I would always get in trouble for screws on the carpet that my dad would step on. Lol

I could listen to people tell these stories forever. Such a wild trip through the past. Thanks for taking the time to share this with us. Also the Linksys tower of power is almost tall enough.

As a 41 year old man who worked in a Flint, Michigan Digilink store during his teen years, I find this quite comforting and fascinating at the same time. Thank you!

Interesting to see your Dad's perspective of running a computer store in the mid-late 90s. I worked at a computer store briefly while I was in high school in the late 90s, probably around 1997. Basically I had to find a place to do work experience for school, so I walked into the local computer store and asked the guy who looked like he was in charge if they took work experience students, he asked if I knew much about computers, I told him I had already built and upgraded my own computers, so he said yes. I spent two weeks building and upgrading computers, installing software, troubleshooting problems for customers, basically everything a regular technician would do. After the work experience period was up, he asked if I wanted to work there on weekends and Thursdays after school since they were open late, and I jumped at the opportunity. We sold a lot of refurbished systems, probably as many as the new systems. Pretty much every customer who was buying a new machine was also trading in their old one, so we'd give them a small discount, take their old machine and copy their files onto the new machine, install the software they were using on the old one, and they'd walk out the door happy. Then we'd clean up the old machine, maybe upgrade the memory and/or hard drive, wipe it and install a new OS, and it'd be out on the sales room floor the next day. It was great for a 15 year-old kid, but I wanted to earn more so I could afford bigger computer upgrades, so I eventually quit and got a job working at the local Maccas (McDonald's, for the non-Aussies). I was getting paid basically the same hourly rate, but I could work longer hours so I made more money. That was probably a huge mistake for my future career in IT, but I did eventually get a "real job" in IT, and it did give me a work ethic that I think helped my IT career greatly. Anyway, it was interesting to hear how the business side worked. I didn't get to see much of that, since I was just a technician, and we weren't part of a big franchise business either. So I'd like to say thanks to Brad, Mr. Ausen, for sharing your experience.

Huh. I wasn't aware that Computer Renaissance was a chain. We have (had?) a couple here. Also had no idea they were related to Play it Again and Once Upon a Child. I see the resemblance now. Neat.

In 1997 I was 13 and sold my family's (then "very rare") Black Diamond Disney VHS cassettes to a seller at antique mall for $300. I then took that money to buy a Casio Cassiopeia WinCE PDA from Computer Renaissance in Evansville, IN. I proudly played with that PDA in front of my parents for at least 3 days until they realized how much it was worth and then of course wondered how I got the money lol. I was forced to return the PDA to Computer Renaissance w/ a 15% restocking fee. Then, I was forced to buy back the Black Diamond VHS tapes I sold. It was a learning experience for sure. Thanks for this video, I had sort of blocked out the name of the store until now

Love the conversation ❤. I lost my dad last October. Please take case of yours.

Computer Renaissance was my go to place for computer parts. Built many custom PCs for family, friends, and clients using parts from them and still use a couple ATX cases to this day that I bought there.

I miss small/independent computer stores. Definitely pre-internet but they were very relevant up to the early 00's where I am. At first we didn't really have any other source of hardware than computer stores and computer fairs in the early-mid 90s. They were the kind of places that encouraged you to just learn to build PC's, many of them had cheap used hardware if you were in need of anything etc... just encouraged a great sort of do it yourself spirit amongst geeks. The fairs were really great, all the latest stuff showed up in those and I frequently came home with a pile of expensive new hardware I didn't know I needed until I saw it running at a fair.

As a millennial, this video hits the feels. I started my computer journey in 1994, was hooked from the beginning and haven't stopped.

I don't live in Seattle, but I visit frequently. Re-PC is a required stop every time I go. Would've loved to see where these stores ended up today. What an awesome view into the history of an industry that is sorely missed.

Appreciate the honesty that was shared from a business perspective. Owning a small business is hard, many people don't realize that the owner is often the last to be paid, and things can go wrong that they have no control of. I've been there personally.

I remember going to the Computer Renaissance in the mid 90s with my dad, He bought me my first computer from there. Thank you, dad! Thank you for supporting my interest in them!

In my old hood our neighbor used to scrap old main frames for the precious metals, I always loved climbing into the stake body of his Mercedes Benz stake body truck and look at old printers, cables, disks, disk drives, main frames and try to understand what these machines did and how they worked

Your father's story is so similar to my story from 1993-1998 working in the gold-rush era of home PC adoption. From the building our own PCs to dealing with passive-agressive callers frustrated with their new PC, to the thefts (oh, the thefts!). Thanks for sharing!

What a snapshot of a moment in time. From making money hand over fist to having to close shop in a handful of years... Great conversation and stories!

Another great video bro, you're one of a few smaller newer retro tech channels that I started following a few months ago and out of all them you've grown to become my favorite, keep up the great work!!

I worked at Brampton Computes from 1996 to about 1999 - It was fun, piles of ISA cards all over the place, weird customers, underage workers (I was 14), getting paid under the table in parts (which I made systems out of and sold in the classifieds for WAY more than I'd make taking cash) - it was awesome. That kind of store format will never come back. I got my start in IT from that store.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. My first job was a "yellow shirt" at Computer City. CompUSA, Future Shop, Ballard Computers, were all competing. Secret shoppers. Price matching. What a time. Eventually went into network engineering.

It was a blast in the '80s until late '90s for computer retail.

I managed a small store in the mid 90s that was the busiest in the city. We had great ads. Sold OEM parts pretty much exclusively. I became friends with the guys from iD (Doom, Quake etc) during that time cause all the PC nerds would come in all the time. The first Fry's in our city opened a mile away and it instantly dried up. Now even Fry's is long gone. At least we still have a Microcenter around here and it remains busy, almost as if the times never changed . I tell people that if you want to see what a retail store looked like in the 80s/90s go to Microcenter. Good energy there and a vibe of excitement.

Two people I'd have a beer with any time. There could be so much geeking out over so many topics, it would be incredible! 🍻

My dad worked at the one in Prescott, AZ as a sales rep and then when they rebranded as E-Systems it was a joy to always go in the back and see how the workers tinkered on computers and now since his passing I do tinkering using the tips the techs taught me

Man. I remember this time fondly. Built my first computer in 1996 from parts bought at Computer City. Spent a lot of time and a fair bit of money at Computer Sonics. Worked at CompUSA in 2001. Always something new to see and learn about. Chaotic pricing everywhere. The start of GPUs, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, PDAs, CD-R.

You remind me of my old man and the childhood I had growing up in his PC store (1995-2005). Killed by Best Buy that popped in a mega plaza just 2 streets over. RIP.

I remember in early 80's in a 3rd world country where I grew up, very few families had PC's at home. My father an engineer bought one Epson Equity I+ PC in 84' which was 98% compatible with IBM PC, he never learned how to properly used it, just the basic stuff like word processing. One year later PC was totally mine. When I was in high school, I had close friends whose parents had PC computer stores without knowing nothing about it, they weren't system engineers or computer science with bachelors but just business men. Those PC stores which sold PC clones were very successful in my city during late 80's and during all 90's. When 2000's came up, 90% of them were gone forever. I worked for free in one of those PC Stores, when I was 12 years old during summer vacations just to learn how to build a PC from scratch and troubleshoot them. My brothers spent those same summer vacations in travels to europe and north america. When I was 17, in 1989 my parents bought me my first PC clone around intel 486 and started programming on my own and earning money by selling custom made accounting software to small businesses and restaurants. I remember how technology and trends in PC industry changed so fast overnight.

Great story from your Dad. I miss this time in tech, we we're so lucky to live through it.

So cool. I grew up working in building custom pcs while in middle school/high school for schools and other public entities. We didn't have an assembly line though. Each person built the thing from start to finish then we'd run down the line installing windows, first from disks then cds then images. This stuff brings back a lot of good and bad memories. Man the cases back then were so sharp. lol

First time seeing your channel. Your father is very well spoken and I could listen to him talk about the history of anything. What a cool dude.

What a blast from the past. A friend and I started a company in 91 fixing printers and rebuilding toner. At the time I had been working on computers (Commodore mainly) but a chance job offer in 1989 at a copier company saved me from the computer boom and bust. Our first retail location in 1994 was all slot wall and looked much like your stores (although it was not a franchise). Printers and copiers got us to January 2020 when we sold and dodged that human malware bullet!

Wonderful historical interview. In the late 90s I was a modem wrangler for WolfeNet and I'm sure a lot of our customers ran his computers. Now, decades later. I'm a "systems engineer II" for Safran Cabin out of Marysville. A big tip of my hat to your father, I'm sure that we could tell a lot of stories over a few beers.

Cool video, That was initially a very profitable business. I started building computers for myself right towards the end of the 90's. And you could see how the industry was just changing very quickly. That was the age of the "Computer Show", very cool. Thanks for sharing.

This video is adding so much more context to this channel.

my first IT job outta college in 2005 was at Computers For Schools. It was a massive e-cycle donation centre and we’d strip and build computers freshly reimaged for school donation.

I worked at a computer store around that time period. It was a crazy time.

this is a really interesting insight into what it was like to sell computers at a time when they advanced so fast that it was really hard to sell used equipment. thank you very much for sharing

There was a local one near to me, it was a mom and pop store owned by two guys. It was there from 1989 to 1999. Started off as a Commodore specialist, what with the C64 and then the Amiga - then went into DOS PC and the CD-ROM era, with selling consoles as well. It did sell games as well - but hardware was a big thing there. In the Amiga era, their basement was set aside for Amigas and you could play on them for a fee for an hour. What really effected its business was a PC World opening up in the same city(on the industrial estate) and that killed their PC building business. It's just the sort of place that we will never see the likes of again.

Just an amazing story! I worked for a few small computer companies in the 90's and this was exactly what happened to them. I was on the service side of the house and when they went under ended up at Radio Shack (The service side of the house).. that didn't last much past 2002 either.. :(

Great video! Thanks to Brad Ausen and his son and all computer store owners for providing people with functioning equipment during that time for helping many people to learn basic computer literacy. In doing so, they promoted the idea that hardware and software, even when partly failing, can often be made to work perfectly, leaving those involved as genuinely pleased and sparing the Earth of some junk. Thanks, guys, for all your hard work and for the sacrifices that were involved. Many of us owe our careers in computing to those early experiences that we had which often started in a computer store.

I didn't work at a Computer Renaissance, but one of my first jobs as a kid was hocking computer parts during the big downturn of computer parts stores in the mid 2000's. It was kind of a blast from the past to see where things went and how others in the space operated.

I worked at A+Computers in West Edmonton Mall (was the largest mall in North America for a short time) in the 90s. I was euphoric around computers and this got me started in IT, where I ended up retiring from. This bought back memories, and had me missing those "days" of computers and the internet evolving. btw.. Your dad is cool and I loved his stories! Thank you!

The 90s was an amazing time for shopping for computers, pc parts, gadgets and software. I was a kid in the 90s but I recall a lot of the early 90s and late 90s computers. Shopping for a pc game was a nice experience. Analogous going to blockbuster but you were looking for anything pc related. What a wonderful time to witness that time period.

I worked at ComputerWare in the greater San Francisco Bay Area during the mid 90's. I vaguely recall a bit of internal news that we were possibly expanding into the Washington area.

33 year old here. very relaxing conversation about the interesting times in the 90's as the pc crazy was booming. i remember the tan speakers on my little desk all cramped with monitor and tower. mouse and keyboard. lmao fun times

And here I was at “The Computer Show & Sale” at the fairgrounds buying all my parts in the mid-late 90s. Very cool to see this side of things

I had a great time listening to your dad. A nice introduction to your channel - yesterday was my 1st visit. I can tangentially relate to 90s computer sales businesses because my brother and I (born 1979 and 1980 respectively) as teenagers would get our pocket money from assembling PCs for friends, friends' parents, small businesses and families in the late 90s. We would immediately spend whatever money we made on more computer gear, of course, and to this day I have far more computers and photo gear that I'll ever have use for. But it was fun. The love for computers and assembling them still bonds us to this day, and my brother's even made a career out of it as a software developer and sysadmin.

This is a really wonderful insight into your family. I really hope you back up and archive the footage for your grandkids. The family history here is quite wonderful. Really heart-warming!

Loved Computer Renaissance. I bought my first CPU, GPU, and stick of RAM from one in the Midwest in '98-99. Thanks for the insightful discussion from the business perspective

Used to get the scraps from one of the top-500 companies, something something money and contracts etc. It runs in the family 😊 Thank you both!

Really enjoyed this, so great of your dad to share his stories! (And the Linksys tower is looking impressive)

That was great to just put on and listen to while working on my homelab. Incredible that he not only kept all those documents, but kept them in good condition too from the looks of it.

Great video, fantastic snapshot in time. The fit out photos look so similar to stores we had here in Australia around the same time as well and great to hear about the backend operations too.

amazing video, crazy how impactful this period was. Keep up the good work hope we see more of these stories!

Good stuff, so great to involve your Dad and hear his story. Love it.

Enjoy this interview on Friday night bring a lot memories from 90' of computer stuff, computer and softwear stores were my favorite places back to then.

Before the Internet and eBay and Amazon. Today, you can get parts in a day I remember when CompUSA opened and I had previously been doing the Computer Shopper magazine That massive catalog that was bigger than a Sears catalog I remember ordering my first computer parts through them and 386 boards and 486 boards and I think even 586 boards but the P2 and P3 days the CompUSA was so awesome Being able to just walk in and buy what I needed I bought my first SCSI CD recorder and SCSI card there Then my first IDE CD recorder with Windows 95 I remember getting the 95 upgrade CD and Internet Explorer CD came in the box. It was an incredible time The world really changed when Windows 95 came out

Hell yeah; was waiting for this one!!

This is awesome! I do believe it is my first time seeing your channel and this was such a fun blast from the past. I grew up a couple hours south of Minneapolis and remember a few of those Computer Renaissance locations from the early 90s. I got into computers in '82 as not even 10 year old kid and rode the tech boom all they way to today. See the old pics and scans really took me back to the days when PCs were starting to get "really good". I still remember setting up my first 386-16 with VGA and a Sound Blaster in October of 1989... I happened to be watching the World Series as the earthquake struck.

This was fantastic! One of the best videos I've seen on RU-vid.

I really enjoyed your fathers story. The 1990s were an exciting time in computing. Id buy a new computer every two years, complete W a new monitor and printer. I lived in North Seattle, and visited Ballard Computer, Computer City, CompUSA, and Egghead. The only hardware I ever bought from Egghead was my first Palm Pilot. They shut down all their stores but opened a huge one just south of their original Lynnwood location. It closed in a few months. Thanks for the memories…your Dad seems like a great guy.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I always loved picking up the monthly Computer User and looking at prices/ads. HDNW. Computer Stop. Etc.

This was great. Thank you for sharing this time capsule 🙏🏽

Amazing interview. Extremely interesting. And I love your content. It’s always so much fun and very informative

Wonderful interview thank you to your dad for sharing.

Thank you Brad for the awesome retrospective into the computer stores you ran, and life advice.

Your videos are the best! Keep it up man. Love the era of equipment you focus on.

What a great little peak into computer history! Thanks!

your dad was a great interview! very interesting and informative info on having a computer store..the ups and downs..your dad seemed driven to get into computers and start a business..i like your dad smart man ..nice guy!

That was awesome! Thank you. Brought me right back to those years.

Man what a great video. Thanks for sharing and thanks to your dad for giving us his perspective on this time in history

Great interview! Your dad is a very interesting guy and getting a look under the hood of how this type of franchise works was cool

I’m so glad these stories are being captured. Well done gentelemen!

Great interview! I worked at Computer Renaissance and enjoyed reselling those Dell Omniplex pcs to college kids as the performance/price point was good! Great times!

thanks for shareing! that brought back some memories from back in the day!

This was awesome. Brought back a lot of memories. Cheers 🎉

Thanks for having your dad share his story. This was really cool!

What a great video! Thank you for sharing your fathers experience

We had a computer renaissance near me, as a kid the owner would let me work on machines in the back, usually things they wrote off as non-repairable... got many up and running and he would let me take hardware they had laying around as payment... really enjoyed my time there

Between your stores, INFOTECH (also in Federal Way) and several other stores in and around the Tacoma area, I self taught myself everything i know about computers. I am now an IT manager for Pierce County WA. Great times and SOOOO much fun learning for all those years. Great video.

I remember computer renaissance! I been to the one in Federal Way. I grew up in Seattle and still live there. DiscGoRound I remember that, they were something else first, there was one in my home suburb of Burien.

I don't know this channel and got recommended the video randomly on RU-vid. What a great interview. Enjoyed every minute of it. Took me back to when I went from the Amiga 500 to the 486 DX2 33MHz. Regards from Norway.

Thank you for this story! I enjoyed this! I sure miss certain things about the 90s and computer stores are one of those things.

Very interesting. I was coming out of the military at this time and got into computers as a hobby and career. It really is amazing to remember the mid 90's compared to now. It was kind of a gold rush era on computers. Thanks for the historical perspective of PC retail history. My first computer was a used Tandy laptop in high school. I was the bomb for having a dot matrix printer for project such as science fairs.

Got my first ‘home built’ PC around 1994 in the UK. Was through a school friend who’s dad was running an operation like yours out of a nearby warehouse. Would save my pocket money and call in and get the parts over several months. He had big boxes of memory, CPUs, pallets of cases. Fascinated me!

Very cool discussion with your dad, I enjoy hearing the history from some of the older generation like that. He mentioned the BBSs, I miss those days! Times were so much simpler with BBS door games, message boards, FidoNet mail delivery, etc.. haha...

Thank you for the wonderful video, brings back great memories.

I remember going to a couple local computer stores as a kid in the 90s. I bought a case from one of them with the hopes to build a PC but that never happened. The atmosphere of a a computer store with cables and peripherals all over the wall can never be replicated. Microcenter is the closest thing to it in 2024.

4:40 - For anyone interested - I punched the $20.000 into the official _CPI Inflation Calculator_ of the _Bureau of Labor Statistics,_ and it says those 20k had a purchasing power of *$42,350.10* in March '24.

I would argue one of the main influences of computer sales in those years was AOL. This not only brought chat rooms but classifieds and a gateway to the rest of the internet. The diskettes and cds would show up in the mail, at the store, everywhere. This pushed upgrades as well and I can remember when the 28k, 33k, and 52k modems came to best buys. Sometimes they would be totally sold out of high speed modems as the new tech hit the stores. I can also remember in '98 when our area first got cable modems rolled out. That was a huge jump. Suddenly I had faster internet at home than our T1 line at work. The huge jumps and competiveness of graphics cards and cpus was amazing. You could buy a case for $20 with a power supply off ebay back then and often it was fine for a starter. There were great sources for parts like Tiger Direct or Fry's. The late 90's and early 2000's were some of the best years to be a techy.

Very interesting interview. Didnt have a Computer Renaissance in my area but did have similar stores. We had stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, and Sears. A couple of mom n pop's that sold new gear but mainly sold computer services. It was always incredible back in the 80's-90's to go to a big city like Denver, OKC, Dallas, Houston, etc that would have many more dedicated computers stores like CompUSA, Staples, and Office Depot.

Love it! Thanks for this great interview!

I worked part time at the CR locations in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa starting in 1995 when I was 15 until around 1999/2000 when they closed. I did repairs and new builds and also sold stuff from time to time. They also made me clean and vacuum since I was a kid and no one else wanted to do it. :) My dad and brother also worked there so there were some work days when it was mostly just my family running the shop. I'm now an IT Architect for a streaming media company and I definitely attribute some of my success to things I learned working on computers there. I truly loved working there and have lots of fond memories. Lots of crazy stories, too! Thanks for the video, it reminded me of some amazing times from my childhood.

What a fantastic interview, this is pure gold.

Wow, that was an enjoyable watch. Your dad is a really good storyteller. I sure would like to see more videos recounting computer history.

Great talk. Very unique insight into a part of the past. Keep sharing

Fun to listen to! Reminded me of other interesting interviews I've listened to on YT: commercial BBS operators, dialup ISP operators, etc.

I remember these stores well... I used to go to the Silverdale location you mentioned, and worked at a mom-and-pop store in Gorst (just South of Silverdale and Bremerton). My interest in computers and looking for the really odd gear is what got me my job at that location, because I appeared to know some of the really esoteric gear. I enjoyed my time there, but working as a tech was not a sustainable living, and I got out of there in '99 and went to work for a University.

I have been waiting for this video!