Marshfield Computer and Phone Store Reflects on 25 Years
MARSHFIELD, WI (OnFocus) – For 25 years, Northside Computers in Marshfield has been helping Central Wisconsin with their technology needs. Founders Bryan and Dan Eckes started the business in 1996 as a computer repair shop on the north side of town.
A fire burned everything down shortly after opening, so the business relocated to 401 S Central Avenue, where it remained for many years before moving to its current (ironic) location on the south side of town.
“We had a very small store on Central, and didn’t have enough room for inventory,” said current Owner Jason Miller of those early days. “Back then, everything was huge desktop cases and big CRT Monitors.”
Due to its size, inventory was often kept at the owners’ other business “Mercury Vending,” so as a young employee, Miller would work after hours to build whatever computers had been sold, and transport them back to the store for the next day. Other limitations in those early days included the internet “speeds” of the early 2000’s.
“The store itself had a dialup connection for Internet, and shared that amongst all the repairs that were going, so that meant some really long repair times when one had to download anything from the internet,” said Miller. “We would keep drivers that we had collected for various systems stored locally so that we wouldn’t have to go download them again, as it took forever to re-download anything.”
Also, because everything was dialup internet, every time there was any kind of thunderstorm, staff would have many computers come in with blown modems.
“We would literally have to watch the weather and brace ourselves for the onslaught of people that couldn’t get on the internet every time it rained,” recalled Miller, adding that everything was Windows 95 and 98 at the time, which had recently introduced “Plug and Play” and there were issues with that constantly.
“You had to properly set little rubber jumpers on expansion cards. such as sound cards or modems, to get them to not conflict with something else in the machine,” he said.
Northside became a US Cellular Agent in 1998 at a time when Marshfield had just one cell phone tower.
“It did not cover the downtown area very well, so phones didn’t work the greatest inside the store that we were trying to sell them out of,” said Miller. “We started when the first digital phones were becoming available. Analog was still an option, but had serious drawbacks with battery life and other things.”
The most popular phones in their first year were the Nokia 5120 and Motorola Star Tac flip phones.
“Those were limited calling plans with 100 to 200 minutes a month, with no texting options at all,” said Miller. “And when texting first became an option, you could only text to other US Cellular phones. Those were very challenging times for all carriers, as the networks were very spotty.”
Over the last 25 years, technology has evolved to be smaller and more reliable.
“We used to send bad components in under warranty almost daily, and we hardly ever
have to deal with warranty claims anymore,” said Miller. “Almost all software today is available online, instantly able to be downloaded. Internet speeds back then would never have supported that, so everything was on physical disks.”
Though there are continual updates in technology, Miller and his team are comfortable managing the evolution of these products.
“It is constantly changing, but when you’re in the thick of it everyday, it’s not a sudden drastic change over night,” he explained. “It’s incremental small changes made with updates and new versions of everything, so you just learn about what’s new with each new product.”
Some of Miller’s favorite technologies to work with included Blackberries, which were the first real smart phone that Northside carried.
“Going further back, the Moto Razr’s were some of the best flip phones of the time,” he said. “On a computer side, Windows XP was the first operating system to really 100% get rid of the command prompt, 98 and 95 had some still running under the hood. And it was finally nice to work with a system that no longer required MS-DOS knowledge.”
After a quarter century in business, Northside Computers has no intentions of slowing down.
“We hope to continue to serve as the best local US Cellular Agent, and continue to grow our subscriber base here in the area,” said Miller. “We appreciate all the support everyone has given us over the years, and hope to earn your business for many years to come!”
Visit Northside Computers at 907 S Central Avenue or online at www.northsidecomputers.net.
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Author: News Desk
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