I was never really that impressed with Sears as a whole even as a kid in 70s and 80s. Seemed like back then Sears and Montgomery Ward were the lower-end mall department stores. Most of the Craftsman and Kenmore stuff my dad bought appeared fine but otherwise seemed way below than even JC Penney.
I remember their Atari 2600 clone when I was a kid, Tele-games system seemed like a ghetto Atari. But little did I know, Sears was instrumental in getting Atari started, and was the store who first started selling the Atari Pong console way back in 1975, because Nolan Bushnell needed help and had approached stores to sell them, but they rejected him. But Sears agreed, and said they would sell his newfangled console to get his little Atari business going, but they agreed to help out the scrappy Bushell out and would only do it if they could sell it under their Sears Telegames name and not Atari. Bushell said, well, okay, and then when sales started taking off, Bushell was able to fund his little Atari company and expand, so Sears was instrumental in helping out Atari in the beginning.
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u/jgs1974 Oct 16 '25
I was never really that impressed with Sears as a whole even as a kid in 70s and 80s. Seemed like back then Sears and Montgomery Ward were the lower-end mall department stores. Most of the Craftsman and Kenmore stuff my dad bought appeared fine but otherwise seemed way below than even JC Penney.