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I had no idea that Coleco was originally The Connecticut Leather Company. Reminds me of Nokia pivoting from rubber boots to mobile phones.
by edent 7y ago
I had no idea that Coleco was originally The Connecticut Leather Company. Reminds me of Nokia pivoting from rubber boots to mobile phones.
- mysterydip 7y agoI learned this and other interesting history from the audiobook version of "The Ultimate History of Video Games" (even though it's slightly dated now, the history is still the same). I'd recommend it if you're at all curious about the stories of the formative years of video games.
- reaperducer 7y agoI wonder if Radio Shack had a similar evolution. One of the auction sites lists all TRS-80 stuff under Tandy Leather Factory.
- technothrasher 7y agoTandy Leather Factory is still in operation as a leather goods chain of stores, but completely separate from RadioShack. But they're both spun out from the Tandy Corporation, started in 1963 from the original Tandy leather, which was founded in 1919.
- LocalH 7y agoTo this day, Tandy in the UK uses a logo that appears to be using the old Radio Shack logotype font: https://www.tandyonline.com/ https://www.tandyonline.com/ Hell, if you look at the footer, the copyright even uses the old "stacked" TC logo (like you used to see on TRSDOS boot)
- benj111 7y agoDidn't know about the coleco one, and I thought Nokia was a paper mill??? Nintendo started out making playing cards, 3M was the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing corporation (geddit), Avon started as a door to door book selling operation, I think Wrigleys started off selling toiletries, the chewing gum was a free gift. Edit: Nokia started as a paper mill but was later bought out by a rubber boot manufacturer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nokia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nokia
- LocalH 7y agoPretty sure Nintendo still make hanafuda, as well. Literally the oldest company in the video game industry.
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoNabisco was founded as the National Biscuit Company. Oh! And Sega, a Japanese company with (I always assumed) a Japanese name, was founded by three white guys in Honolulu as Service Games, to sell imported slot machines to American military bases (the armed services). "Sega" isn't even a Japanese word, as far as I can tell.
- saagarjha 7y agoFor those who don’t see it, it’s just a standard abbreviation of Service Games. Nothing Japanese about it.