Where did you buy your cassette games?

mondeo · 14-05-2011 12:33am #1

My Dad use to bring me to Virgin Mega Stores in town during the late 80's - early 90's, I remember up stairs they had shelves and shelves of C-64 games, Amstrad, Spectrum etc. Flipping super place for games & a great place to spend a Saturday afternoon in those days. It was the only place I ever bought my Spectrum games other then one or two odd ball places that had a rack of them from time to time.

What I would do to go in some place right now and find a hugh shelf full of Spectrum games to have a good rummage through! I'd love that:(.

Rick Deckard · 14-05-2011 12:39am

Peats on parnell st. In the old shop upstairs, me and the brother would head in on a saturday and pool our pocket money..

Happy days! Think the games were only a couple of quid. Tried virgin but they had feck all for our 130xe

mondeo · 14-05-2011 12:48am

peatcass wrote: »

Peats on parnell st. In the old shop upstairs, me and the brother would head in on a saturday and pool our pocket money..

Happy days! Think the games were only a couple of quid. Tried virgin but they had feck all for our 130xe

I remember peats but funnily enough I was only in it a hand full of times looking for games.

mondeo · 14-05-2011 3:12pm

Im thinking possibly a majority of people on this forum are the playstation generation and probably don't remember or hadn't been conceived yet when the likes of me was buying zx spectrum/c64 games new in the shops lol. I'm 29 so not that fecking old like

Are there many c64/Amstrad/Amigs/ST/Spectrum era visitors on here?

Retr0gamer · 14-05-2011 3:15pm

The big computer place in Clearys and HMV on grafton street for me.

paperwork · 14-05-2011 3:19pm

There was a shop in Clondalkin Village that sold Speccy until about 1995! My best mate as a kid had a spectrum until he got an N64.

mondeo · 14-05-2011 5:13pm

When the square opened in 1990' 'Harry moores' had a big selection of C64\Amiga games and little or no support for the Amstrad & Spectrum which was a pitty.

CiDeRmAn · 14-05-2011 5:27pm

When I was a lad I bought my games in a couple of places, Clerys and Easons, both on O'Connell St and then the Virgin Megastore when that opened.
Also would have gone to QTH up on Dawson St and Harry Moores when that opened on Henry St.
I shopped in HMV at that time too, as well as record shops, Golden Discs and the like.
The forst games I bought I got in a litle shop that opened upstairs in a unit in the Castle Shopping Centre in Swords, thats going back a bit, 1985!
It's been interesting to see the retailers ebb and flow over the years.
Back in the 80's it was independant retailers and the various Irish dept stores, not to mention the Megastore.
In the 90's then it shifted to the toy shops and large UK chains, before Gamesworld and Smyths took a chunk after the dawn of the 32bit systems.
In the 00's we see it solidify into the UK chains and Gamestop and Smyths.
And now in the 10's we see it shift further and further into online, with both physical media from amazon and play and also download.
The last decades big retailers are already finding it hard to compete, and we see them opening online portals to keep up.
Be interesting to see where we all shop in 10 years time!

mondeo · 14-05-2011 5:38pm

paperwork wrote: »

There was a shop in Clondalkin Village that sold Speccy until about 1995! My best mate as a kid had a spectrum until he got an N64.

The very last of the spectrum games in vigin mega stores I have seen for sale was in late 95' and they sold them in packs of 4,5 or maybe 6 just to clear em out. 'mastertronics' re released alot of games at that point swell in similar packs labelled 'sports' 'racing' etc

7sr2z3fely84g5 · 14-05-2011 5:43pm

i remember these shops too,local one sold migs/c64s,looking back before the internet shopping you wonder how much of a mark up some of these retailiers had,thing was,nobody else sold these things in ireland,you just had to make do with what they had.

Even when came to repairs,we didnt have a quick or disposable income as do now,great that you can search on the net to find the answer before you returned the item,usually the seller would tell you it would had to be "returned to england" for repairs,then when sony arrived to open offices in ireland,ireland became an intresting place to do business.

Did speak to retailer recently who i remember sold c64 games,telling me humourous story of getting his osciloscope out to correct the misalignments that the old tape/disk drives used to get sometimes.

Think the last big speccy game was codemasters Robin Hood - Legend Quest which came out in 93!.

gouche · 15-05-2011 9:41am

I remember one of the only places you could get Atari 2600 games in Wexford during the 80's was a chemist in town. Always thought that was a bit strange.

ladypip · 15-05-2011 9:50am

Im a c64 player (just got myself set up with the system and favorite game of my youth again) I used to buy games in the computer shop in Northside shopping centre. I also remember going into town with my nanny a few times and she brought me to a shop on Henry st, i cant remember the name of the shop though it was small and literally had wall to wall cassette games. It was heaven!!

ciaran76 · 15-05-2011 9:56am

In Dublin there was a shop on Earl street or Cathedral st that had all c64 /Amstrad/ sinclair / spectrum etc games.

Apollo 1 on Moore st too was great for all these games also.

Welease · 15-05-2011 10:31am

Computer shop in the Ilac centre .. and Banba used to sell games also..
I also used to get them from the rental companies in the UK.

but primarily <cough> borrowing games via my double tape deck

Lab_Mouse · 15-05-2011 11:23am

like the OP I use to get my c64 games in Virgin megastore.I can remember quiete clearly buying the last ninja 3 there for 13.99.

They also use to sell rpg's like dungeon and dragons near the games section.

Peats was the wrong side of town for me

Use to buy my budget games(mainly codemasters) in the banba in rathmines.

Lab_Mouse · 15-05-2011 11:25am

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Be interesting to see where we all shop in 10 years time!

uTorrents probably:pac:

Skerries · 15-05-2011 2:08pm

used to buy in the Megastore or Easons but i also used to buy them in the games rental place on Cathal Brugha st called Computer City
I used to go in there every Saturday to rent a game for Speccy and then later the Amiga until it closed

d22ontour · 15-05-2011 2:33pm

paperwork wrote: »

There was a shop in Clondalkin Village that sold Speccy until about 1995! My best mate as a kid had a spectrum until he got an N64.

Used to buy c64 games in Tuthills and Electrovision too i think the name of it was, in the village too.

Peats in Parnell ST too.

mondeo · 15-05-2011 2:45pm

Nice to hear where people had been getting their stuff:)

Does Rage there in Dublin sell any old C64, spectrum, amiga, Amstrad games?

unky chop chop · 15-05-2011 3:04pm

Yeah Virgin was where I got the new releases for c64.
Budget games from Mulveys in Dundrum.
Great shop in it's day.Hardware store and a massive wall full of c64 and Speccy games for a fiver.Heaven

7sr2z3fely84g5 · 15-05-2011 3:13pm

Speccy was big in eastern europe,many clones where made,funny story is some radio stations former ussr states actually broadcasted the games on radio,wiki picks up-

One unusual software distribution method were radio or television shows in e.g. Croatia (Radio 101), Serbia (Ventilator 202), Slovenia (Radio Študent), Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania or Brazil, where the host would describe a program, instruct the audience to connect a cassette tape recorder to the radio or TV and then broadcast the program over the airwaves in audio format. In former Soviet Union, mostly in Russia and Ukraine unauthorised radio operators (so-called radio hooligans) often exchanged software from cassette tapes for Spectrum and other popular computers by broadcasting it.
Another unusual method which was used by some magazines were 7" 33⅓ rpm "flexidisc" records, not the hard vinyl ones, which could be played on a standard record player. These disks were known as "floppy ROMs".

unky chop chop · 15-05-2011 3:30pm

Jesus that's a great idea.Never thought about it before.
Pirate radio stations broadcasting games would have been great back in the day

Dr Bob · 15-05-2011 4:05pm

mondeo wrote: »

When the square opened in 1990' 'Harry moores' had a big selection of C64\Amiga games and little or no support for the Amstrad & Spectrum which was a pitty.

hey I worked there!
It was much later though , the mid nineties , I remember doing the sega saturn and Playstation launches!
Since I'd an Atari computer Peats was where I got most of my tape games , and oddly enough a lot of my megadrive games came from there!
When I got the c64 Easons and virgin where great places to buy games as well!

mondeo · 15-05-2011 4:58pm

luas_dublin wrote: »

hey I worked there!
It was much later though , the mid nineties , I remember doing the sega saturn and Playstation launches!
Since I'd an Atari computer Peats was where I got most of my tape games , and oddly enough a lot of my megadrive games came from there!
When I got the c64 Easons and virgin where great places to buy games as well!

It was a nice enough place Harry moores, I did buy a dot matrix printer there back around 92'. I remember the Saturn launches there and the big screen near the entrance with sega rally on it, my jaw dropped when I saw that game:eek:

Dr Bob · 15-05-2011 8:39pm

Not so much for the saturn , but around the time of the PS1 launch , and for about a year afterwards a few of us used to hang back after work and have tekken/tekken 2 and ridge racer tournaments, i remember Soul Blade getting a fair bit of play later as well.
Actually one of the cool things (and I can probably say this now) was that over christmas or the odd weekend we were allowed sign out a playstation and a few games , on condition that a it was returned exactly the way it was taken out ( as it was going to be sold) and b we didnt mention it to anyone.
This was back when the playstation was 2-300 quid and the games were 30-40 so it was great!
It worked well until late in 1996 some numpty forgot to pack the controller back in the box , and we'd an irate mammy in the shop the day after stevens day complaining that her sons christmas was ruined! He got a few games as compensation so he was delighted but the "loan scheme" went out the window after that:)
I remember lots of cool things about working there , on occaison we'd loan one of the other eletrical shops( RTV rentals I think it was ) consoles and games when they were out of stock and they'd return the favor when we were out , it was all very friendly, the time of shops in ireland acting like that is all gone sadly...

mondeo · 15-05-2011 9:40pm

luas_dublin wrote: »

Not so much for the saturn , but around the time of the PS1 launch , and for about a year afterwards a few of us used to hang back after work and have tekken/tekken 2 and ridge racer tournaments, i remember Soul Blade getting a fair bit of play later as well.
Actually one of the cool things (and I can probably say this now) was that over christmas or the odd weekend we were allowed sign out a playstation and a few games , on condition that a it was returned exactly the way it was taken out ( as it was going to be sold) and b we didnt mention it to anyone.
This was back when the playstation was 2-300 quid and the games were 30-40 so it was great!
It worked well until late in 1996 some numpty forgot to pack the controller back in the box , and we'd an irate mammy in the shop the day after stevens day complaining that her sons christmas was ruined! He got a few games as compensation so he was delighted but the "loan scheme" went out the window after that:)
I remember lots of cool things about working there , on occaison we'd loan one of the other eletrical shops( RTV rentals I think it was ) consoles and games when they were out of stock and they'd return the favor when we were out , it was all very friendly, the time of shops in ireland acting like that is all gone sadly...

I'll say nothing if you don't kind of thing;)

Nice of them!

Lab_Mouse · 15-05-2011 10:43pm

unky chop chop wrote: »

Budget games from Mulveys in Dundrum.

use to rent the games from there and copy them with my twin deck:)

Owen · 15-05-2011 10:48pm

Got mine from Maddens in Cork on Princes Street, they used to have carousels of cassettes on the wall there. Bought my C64 there too as an upgrade from my Vic20. Always remember the gorgeous flight sim joysticks they had too - wanted to buy one which had an artificial horizon in a globe at the centre of it, but my confirmation money wouldn't stretch to both the C64 and the joystick.

mondeo · 16-05-2011 5:51pm

PaintDoctor wrote: »

Got mine from Maddens in Cork on Princes Street, they used to have carousels of cassettes on the wall there. Bought my C64 there too as an upgrade from my Vic20. Always remember the gorgeous flight sim joysticks they had too - wanted to buy one which had an artificial horizon in a glove at the centre of it, but my confirmation money wouldn't stretch to both the C64 and the joystick.

You done well to get a c64 out of your confirmation money. I got 20quid for my confirmation, a packet of colored marbles and a kick in the arse!
I considered myself lucky

smilerf · 16-05-2011 5:58pm

used get mine in music shop in carrick on suir

DinoRex · 16-05-2011 8:25pm

Payton Few Sediment wrote: »

Speccy was big in eastern europe,many clones where made,funny story is some radio stations former ussr states actually broadcasted the games on radio,wiki picks up-

I used to have a computer game radio programme called The Binary Zone back in 1995 and tried this out once... it didn't really work very well.

ciaran76 wrote: »

In Dublin there was a shop on Earl street or Cathedral st that had all c64 /Amstrad/ sinclair / spectrum etc games.

Apollo 1 on Moore st too was great for all these games also.

I loved Apollo 1. Got lots of great Codemasters games in there... Think it's where I was first introduced to Dizzy.

And of course Computer City was great for renting and copying...

Optimus Prime · 16-05-2011 8:38pm

I used to buy my c64 games in a shop upstairs in the bowling alley in palmerstown, no idea what its called to be honest but spent a fortune in there. if i was in town i used to get em in peats too. i think thats where i got my actual c64 with the light gun and batman the caped crusader!

LoGiE · 18-05-2011 2:01pm

Wow

Peats (Dublin)
Computer City (Dublin)
Virgin (Dublin)
Clearys (Dublin)
Astra (Swords)

There's probably a few more that I can't remember right now. God be with the days you could walk into a newsagent pick up a bar of chocolate and a c64 compilation tape. Usually there was only one good game on there but it probably cost less the 1.99.

Computer city alway6s had a good selection of Hit squad and Kixx releases. I picked up the c64 version of The New Zeland story and Rainbow Islands :pac:

Steve X2 · 18-05-2011 2:47pm

I used to get games for my Amstrad CPC 464 in a place called Alo Donegans in Naas. And also from another shop called Ambrose Donegans also in Naas. I think they were/are brothers or something like that.

I remember when I had an Amiga 600 and was doing some coding and graphics/raytracing stuff on it and going into Alo Donegans looking for software and hardware and we always ended up arguing about which was better, the Amiga or his extremely boring 386/486 PC's.

When I was a bit older I used to make the long and arduous quest from Kill Village in Kildare to Dublin to go to the Virgin Megastore and a few other shops to get Amiga games.

Good times

.

DinoRex · 18-05-2011 4:28pm

Got most of my Amiga games in the North Star Hotel... haha...

Gunmonkey · 18-05-2011 6:37pm

Shop in Tullamore called "Rexonics", is still there but shut down decades ago, still has all the signs and such up on the windows. Remember getting Amastrad games for £5 back then, pity the vast amount of them were bull

CiDeRmAn · 18-05-2011 8:32pm

LoGiE wrote: »

Astra (Swords)

Where in Swords?
I hail from that kip, was it the place upstairs in the Castle Shopping Centre or the videoshop in the same centre?
I got Spy Hunter in the latter and Lunar Jetman in the former!

I remember the utter disbelief when I first played Knight Lore, amazing!
I also had a penchant for the Magic Knight games, a great little character that, pity I was too thick to get far in the later games!

Owen · 18-05-2011 8:36pm

I used to get really excited about the artwork on the cover. Some futuristic space ship, or a fantastic illustration of a platformer. Then you'd load it, and it'd be an 8 bit sprite no matter how much you wanted it to be a 64 bit pologon :pac:

Rick Deckard · 18-05-2011 8:44pm

Xenon was a big offender for that, looking at the cover you'd think a ps3 would struggle with the graphics!!

Daith · 18-05-2011 9:44pm

Skerries wrote: »

used to buy in the Megastore or Easons but i also used to buy them in the games rental place on Cathal Brugha st called Computer City
I used to go in there every Saturday to rent a game for Speccy and then later the Amiga until it closed

That's the one I remember most. Mainly because they had a copy of The Legend of Zelda for the NES. I was hooked by box and blurb and well, thats when I gave up playing games on cassette!

RGDATA! · 18-05-2011 9:58pm

i seem to remember it being all mail order for the Spectrum 48k in the 80s. i used to love poring over the ads in C&VG (THE gaming magazine of the time) and occasionally sending off handwritten letters and postal orders to places like Stevenage. Other than that there was older friend of the family geek who made reliable cassette copies (which was no mean feat at the time when a lot of dubbing was done by playing on one boombox, putting another one opposite it and hitting record) of stuff like Sabre Wulf and, my all time favourite on the speccy - Pyjamarama

grandpa%2Bsimpson.jpg

gertechhaha · 18-05-2011 11:21pm

mondeo wrote: »

My Dad use to bring me to Virgin Mega Stores in town during the late 80's - early 90's, I remember up stairs they had shelves and shelves of C-64 games, Amstrad, Spectrum etc. Flipping super place for games & a great place to spend a Saturday afternoon in those days. It was the only place I ever bought my Spectrum games other then one or two odd ball places that had a rack of them from time to time.

What I would do to go in some place right now and find a hugh shelf full of Spectrum games to have a good rummage through! I'd love that:(.

i always got mine in smyths,master system,mega drive,nintendo 64,wish there was a gamestop back then,wud have got alot more games

mondeo · 18-05-2011 11:36pm

gertechhaha wrote: »

i always got mine in smyths,master system,mega drive,nintendo 64,wish there was a gamestop back then,wud have got alot more games

Smyths toy store in Tallaght? I bought gamegear/master system games there when they first opened their doors in late 1992'. I dont remember them selling Commodore etc cassettes, then again maybe they did

I think when Smyths popped up, cassette games were in the phasing out stages and possibly kept their stock to the new age megadrive/Snes generation.

LoGiE · 18-05-2011 11:44pm

DinoRex wrote: »

Got most of my Amiga games in the North Star Hotel... haha...

That takes me back! Lugging my amiga into town...

CiDeRmAn it was the one above castle video. He moved a few times if I remember correctly twice on North Street. The second time he opened a small arcade as well that had street fighter 2, Mortal Kombat and a few others. Bloody hell that was a long time ago!

docentore · 19-05-2011 5:06am

I've got my whole Atari cassettes collection (more than 60) off Stoner. good man

CiDeRmAn · 19-05-2011 7:52am

LoGiE wrote: »

That takes me back! Lugging my amiga into town...

CiDeRmAn it was the one above castle video. He moved a few times if I remember correctly twice on North Street. The second time he opened a small arcade as well that had street fighter 2, Mortal Kombat and a few others. Bloody hell that was a long time ago!

Some of us are fierce fierce old here!

As for things being mail order, I remember the ads in C&VG, also in Sinclair User as well.
I never had the means of ordering though, instead trekking into Clerys and Easons every now and again....
Good Times!

That expectant wait as the game was loading, assuming you hadn't bolloxed up your tape head alignments!
Then, would you be

or

I never bought a game without a review from Crash in the end, too many disappointments, sh1te games didn't begin with Pitfighter and Rise of the Robots, they are persistent through out time!

DinoRex · 19-05-2011 11:48am

Cleary's was great for Amiga stuff.

I'm remember getting so much CD-32 stuff in there.

gertechhaha · 19-05-2011 12:55pm

mondeo wrote: »

Smyths toy store in Tallaght? I bought gamegear/master system games there when they first opened their doors in late 1992'. I dont remember them selling Commodore etc cassettes, then again maybe they did

I think when Smyths popped up, cassette games were in the phasing out stages and possibly kept their stock to the new age megadrive/Snes generation.

no,smyths in henry street,limerick.i dont remember commodore cassettes either,little bit before my time haha

7sr2z3fely84g5 · 19-05-2011 1:40pm

its what most people bought an amiga/pc for back then,copy machines,even bad influence covered it lmao-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ2-Fe3DnE8

Or going into pound shop to get tapes to back them up original software by using your dads/brothers twin tape deck stereo.

Where did you buy your cassette games?

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