CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

ComputerWare

macintosh retail store chain

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ5157625
Source-derived summary

ComputerWare: The MacSource was a chain of ten Macintosh-only retail stores in the greater San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California founded by Karim Khashoggi and Drew Munster. At one time, they were the largest Macintosh-only reseller in the United States. Guy Kawasaki mentions ComputerWare a number of times in his book, The Macintosh Way. Besides the ten stores, ComputerWare also had a headquarters that held international, direct, and corporate sales departments, and at one time had a full hardware repair depot and various training centers on the Bay Area.

History

The first ComputerWare store was opened on California Avenue in Palo Alto in 1985 by Drew Munster and Karim Khashoggi. They later hired Derek Van Atta as store manager. ComputerWare was originally incorporated as Lightning Development, doing business as ComputerWare; later the corporation was reorganized as ComputerWest dba ComputerWare after David Lipson bought the company from the original founders.

The corporate sales department was formed in 1987.

In 1988 a separate Headquarters was set up at 2800 West Bayshore Avenue in Palo Alto to house administrative, hardware repair, corporate sales, and other departments that were outgrowing the floor above the Palo Alto retail storefront.

In May 1989, ComputerWare expanded to two stores with the opening of their Sunnyvale store on Lawrence Expressway near Fry's Electronics.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “ComputerWare” is macintosh retail store chain. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through ComputerWare, macintosh and retail, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1985, 1987, 1988, 1989—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, ComputerWare, macintosh and retail is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “macintosh retail store chain” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5157625. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1989.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “ComputerWare”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow ComputerWare primary sources, ComputerWare archive and ComputerWare research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “ComputerWare”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from ComputerWare” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.