Commodore Store Displays?

History and Preservation Issues

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cobracon
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Commodore Store Displays?

Post by cobracon »

Did Commodore ever produce store displays for their computers? I tried to do a google search, but came up empty handed.
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ral-clan
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by ral-clan »

I worked in a K-Mart Canada electronics department during the C64/Amiga years (late 1980s) and don't remember any specific Commodore branding for the displays. The Amiga and C64 were set up on display racks as demonstrators, but these were K-Mart racks, not Commodore provided.

I can't remember seeing any Commodore branded display stands anywhere else....MAYBE in the VIC-20 years --- I have a vague memory of a large display stand ---- but I could be confusing that with an Intellivision / Atari one in my mind (the kind that looks like a large glass cabinet with the console demonstrating itself in the centre and to either side, above and below all the software / accessories on display and stored.
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cobracon
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by cobracon »

I know the Atari line up had some nice displays. Just seems weird Commodore would not do the same.
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RobertBe
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by RobertBe »

cobracon wrote:Did Commodore ever produce store displays for their computers?
Yes, they did. I have a photo from a store display saved by the Dienstagstreff Commodore Club. i'll see if I can find it.

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RobertBe
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by RobertBe »

Found it.

Image

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cobracon
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by cobracon »

Thanks for the pic. Did they have Kiosk as well?
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RobertBe
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by RobertBe »

Heh, I can't remember that.

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cbmeeks
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by cbmeeks »

Now, the real question is....did any store do a Bill Cosby TI display?

.....I'm going to get some heat over that one...lol
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cobracon
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by cobracon »

:roll:

lol I am sure they did. His face was on everything TI99!
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by rasch_C »

So, I just got this into my possession last night (I won it on auction about 2 weeks ago and my friend picked it up at the time). It's bigger than I thought it was going to be.

At first I thought it might have been a header that a store would put above a shelf display and have shelves organized to display the VIC-20 computer and relevant product. Now that I have it here and am looking it over, I'm beginning to wonder if it may have been part of a bigger kiosk? I know bigger stand-alone kiosks were the norm back-in-the-day. See examples of Atari kiosks (2600, 5200, 8-bit computers), Colecovision, etc.

This lights up the front marquee (which is angled down) and the entire bottom. So, it definitely went above whatever it was showcasing. I'm not sure how it would've have been mounted, however. The duct tape in the back does not seem to be covering any sort of bigger holes. There might be screw holes behind the duct tape, but I have not investigated further yet. There is also the big lag screws on the side (2 each side). I do not know what those anchored into. 3 of those lag screws are screwed all-the-way in, but the 4th is backed out some. Maybe the lag screws were used for mounting? There is also no on/off switch, just a short cord. It lights up as soon as it plugs in.

-Allen

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F5e-W ... Ij42x8bLA3
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1R3i-x ... pv9lIt0k-Q
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1L5UEw ... Q0TSFjHe0X
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LDgBH ... lz1jMqRJlS

PS. does anyone know how to embed the pics from my Google Drive directly into this post?
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Mike
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by Mike »

rasch_C wrote:PS. does anyone know how to embed the pics from my Google Drive directly into this post?
The "General Topics" section is configured not to allow for attachments.

For images that means the target of the bbCode image-tag must form a valid URL, which could also directly be shown by itself - as bare image, without the hoster's 'decoration' - in your web browser. That's called an image deep-link.

Those links leads to a 'decorated' web page. There, a download option is displayed, which opens an new URL that ends in "?e=download".

If you remove the quoted part, the image is directly shown in the web browser, and thus this truncated URL is valid for inclusion, see here as an example for the first link:

(Edit: image deep-link removed, see next post)

Please shrink the photos to a more manageable size. For display, something along 640x480 is entirely sufficient and saves on bandwidth, especially for people using mobile phones to access the forum.

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Mike
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by Mike »

Here are the images of your post, shrunk down, after I moved the thread to the "Collecting and History" section to allow for attachments:

Image

Image

Image

Image
rasch_C
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by rasch_C »

Mike wrote:Here are the images of your post, shrunk down, after I moved the thread to the "Collecting and History" section to allow for attachments:
Mike,
Thank you for that.

If anyone has more info on this, or if they have any info in general on kiosks or displays that Commodore may have used, I'd be very interested.


Thank you,
-Allen
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by rasch_C »

Some more info on this unit:

Measures ~47"w X 23.5"d X 5.5"h
Weight 25.5lbs

Opening the top access panel reveals that the bolts in the side just screw into some inserts in the side boards and nothing else. So, it would seem that's how it mounts. What it mounted to exactly is still unknown.

There also does seem to be 5 or 6 screw holes though the backboard in each location of the duct tape. I would assume this would've been used for either a different mount option, or used for additional stability when using the side bolts to mount.


-Allen
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ral-clan
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Re: Commodore Store Displays?

Post by ral-clan »

This is an exceptional piece! Happy to see that it was preserved!
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