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Shreve Systems is Dead and Going
perfessor multigeek writes "Since back in '78, Shreve Systems has been the funkiest aftermarket source of Apple stuff. Well, not anymore. They're going out of business right now and any folks looking for hundred-dollar working laptops (with bag and Works), ABD keyboards for a fiver, or Mac Plus supplies, better get over there soonest." You could start your own online store with what you could buy over there.
Shreve Audio bought the domain name.
if you go to http://www.shrevesystems.com/powerbook.html you'll get their old site, but no way to order online. I think there's an onsite auction next week. And Shreveaudio is /was part of the computer shreve.
Gooble cache from today.
The PowerBooks they're showing most prominently on their page are 5300's. Anybody who's ever owned one can tell you that these are far and away the worst laptops Apple ever made. They're bulky, hot, and they were even slow by the standards of their day.
I wouldn't wish this laptop on my worst enemy, even for $199. They should be paying people to haul their 5300's away.
It's not entirely clear how that $199 price applies to the PowerBook shown, anyway. Their price list shows the original PowerBooks-- the 100 and 140-- for $199, but the 5300's are $450 and up. At that price, they're definitely not worth it.
And check out their prices for the 3400's-- nearly a thousand bucks for a laptop with 16 MB of RAM and a 3 GB hard drive! Considering that you can get a brand new iBook for just a few dollars over that, these prices make no sense at all.
I'll be sorry to see Shreve Systems go, but at these prices, I honestly hope they don't get any takers.
I write in my journal
You obviously haven't been a Mac user too long, or have been living in a cave.
Shreve Systems was selling refurbished Macs for almost as long as I've used them. I still have an old Quadra 610 pizza box that was my first computer (like, only mine, not the family computer). My dad bought almost every pre-G# Mac he ever owned or specced from Shreve. For the Mac user without the deep pockets or with a frugal streak back in the day, they were the only place to look for equipment. Even these days, you never know when you're going to need to replace parts on someone's old PowerMac or need an AppleTalk card for an ImageWriter, and Shreve were the guys to talk to. Now that source has dried up.
I still have a (working) floppy drive that I got from them in my (working) Apple ][.
Hmm, wonder if they have Z80 cards (for the new ][e I just got to complement the ][+) in that liquidation sale...
Until you've managed to slice off 20 bytes from your code to make it run quicker, you have no place calling yourself a software hacker.
Now, trivia question: What's the memory location (in hex) that contained the current pixel being drawn? (and a note, in 20 some years, I forget too).
(useful so you don't get snow by writing to video RAM while it's being displayed)
You kids with your gigabytes. Any application larger than 48k is a waste of space.
So, anyone got IPv6 running on the 6502 or 65802 upgrade?
Everyone who has dealt with Shreve Systems has discovered that they are an organized crime ring. This is not an exageration... If you aren't patient enough to read my tirade just take a look at this link to a usenet search for Shreve Systems... 2700 unhappy customers, 'nuff said.
Whats more, dealmac.com started their consumer complaints section because of Shreve Systems!
Here is my personal experience. I bought a mother board from them some years ago. I paid full price for a NEW motherboard and recieved a USED motherboard. The salesperson assured me it was new even though I could plainly see that someone had unproffesionally modified the board with a soldering iron. I checked the PRAM and discovered that the board had over 9000 hours of use logged on it! I sent it back the day I got it and was charged a $100 restocking fee. When I explained that I had ordered a new part and they sent me a used part they would press the infinite hold button on their end then hang up.
So I was steamed and started to do some research. I was collecting information to file to the Better Business Bureau. (I discovered that the Louisiana BBB is a faceless black hole of inaction.) Searching online, I came across former Shreve Systems employees confessing to crimes committed while on the job as some kind of revenge for getting fired/laid off. The stories ranged from changing printers page count back to zero, to selling completely broken equipment and then charging restocking fees when the customer returns the part.
Macworld and macweek magazine should never have continued to publish their ad in the back with the knowledge of these kind of business practices. Shame on them.
It's worth noting that Shreve Systems tends to seed various web pages with false positive reviews of themselves to throw off first time buyers.