I’ve known Villman (the computer chain store) way back in college and several of my lavish PC peripheral acquisitions were from their Katipunan branch. There was a young couple who owned the first franchise there in front of AdMU’s Gate 3. Anyway, this story was shared to me by Joseph of Batang Baler.
I was rummaging through my trash bins when i saw 2 5-1/4 inch floppy disks that reminded me of Villman’s early years. They are copies of F-117A computer game that I purchased at Villman for 20 or 25 pesos way back in 2002 or 2003.
Back then, Villman was just a small computer and software store at a place called People’s Park in front of SM City north EDSA. The place was demolished to give way to the MRT terminal. They already sell computers with the option of loading it full of software. Any software that would fit in a 512MB hard disk. All value-added services. If you want extra software like games (Quake, Wolfenstein, Jeopardy) or Wordstar or Lotus123, you can purchase copies at 20 or 25 pesos per disk. The F-117A game is a 2-disk game so its 50 pesos.
Of course Villman is different now. Back then there’s no such issue as software piracy since the local IT industry is still in its infancy. I have no grudge about Villman. I just find the thing funny and interesting. A relic of RP’s IT past.
Some parts of the email were omitted since those were not part of the Villman story. Of course, in the late 1990’s, this was really widespread and no computer shop in GreenHills Virramall would offer rock-bottom prices without these so-called obligatory bundled freebies of MS Windows and Office. Otherwise, no one would buy from them.
See how time flies? :D
If I’m not mistaken was Villman based next to Ateneo? Just to correct you. By 2002 or 2003 software piracy was already rampant all over the metro. During that time floppy disks were already extinct. The last time I bought software placed on a floppy disk was way back in 1994. By 1995 CD’s was the preferred media sold by these vendors.
In 1986, I believe I went to their store to buy some games from them. I used to have an apple II+ compatible pc. That was my first pc. I used it only for games. I usually buy games at Brochierre Greenhills and later on JAARD and Dataventure.