RE: Digital Archaeology: Gateway DX4300-11

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RE: Digital Archaeology: Gateway DX4300-11

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ironshield in #retrocomputing • 2 months ago

From 1998 - 2005, I worked at a Gateway Country Store, a showroom for their mail order PC's. Sold many thousands of PCs and laptops. Later they added "plasma" tvs and cameras and such. Gateway once offered very high-end tech, but eventually lost their market share to Dell, who targeted businesses. It was a sad day for me when the stores closed, but it was a great run.

I bought my wife a Gateway laptop a few years back, they still do make them, but I'm pretty sure it's just a label at this point.

!BBH

2 months ago in #retrocomputing by ironshield

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darth-azrael 2 months ago

My first two PCs were Gateways. The first was a 486 based machine i got in 1993 and the other was a Pentium II I got at the end of 1997. I loved both of them. I briefly considered getting a Destination system in 1999 but never did. I was building my own PCs after that.

I've had my hands on various Gateways since. Their quality seemed to start really going downhill somewhere in the late Pentium 4 era. I have less experience with their laptops though. Modern one are probably made by Acer. They were the ones that ultimately bought Gateway.

I never had the chance to visit one of the Country Stores.

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ironshield 2 months ago

I'm pretty sure my wife's Gateway is actually an Acer with a Gateway label on it.

One of the (perhaps silly) reasons people purchased Gateways from the Country "store" (instead of phone/online) is because when customers completed a Gateway order, they would walk out with a sealed cow-print cardboard box. Inside was a thank you note, a Gateway mug, a squeezy cow and a Gateway pen. I handed out thousands of these boxes over the years.

When the store closed, I had a opportunity to take home a dozen or so of these sealed boxes. But I didn't. Today they're probably worth $50 - $100 each.

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darth-azrael 2 months ago

Interesting. The Country Stores didn't exist yet when I got my first Gateway. They were around by the time I got the second one but there just weren't every any near me. I definitely would have visited one if there had been. Maybe that would have pushed me over the edge on buying that Destination system, lol.

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