So Mac OS 8.5 finally arrived on Saturday, and there was much rejoicing (yayyy). For the most part, people seem pleased with Apple's new system software release, which appears to be a solid upgrade with enough fun little features to justify the $99 retail price tag. For our part, we ventured bravely into unknown territory to secure a copy-- namely, the newish CompUSA in Cambridge. We've never been great fans of CompUSA ("Your Dank, Spooky Warehouse Filled With Computer-Type Stuff!"), whose stores seem universally underlit and staffed with brusque and unknowledgable salespeople as a general rule. Not that we haven't found some great exceptions: in the past, we've encountered a few genuinely helpful and technically-savvy CompUSA employees, but we should have radio-tagged them as members of an endangered species, because their breed is few and far between. As for exceptions to the rule that CompUSA stores must be vast, yawning warehouses lit by a few ill-placed kerosene lanterns placed atop some dusty and teetering stacks of dot-matrix printers, we hadn't encountered one until Saturday...

Cambridge's CompUSA is actually mostly on the second floor of what is almost a small office-type building; upon entering the first-floor lobby, we were greeted with the sight of several customer service representatives sitting along the back wall, and an escalator up to the second floor, which was the main store area. Surprisingly enough, the atmosphere was almost pleasant, as the ceilings weren't six miles high and the lighting felt more appropriate for a department store than for, say, that giant government warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Most CompUSA's we've visited somehow manage to make us feel claustrophobic despite the empty space overhead; this store, conversely, seemed more cozy than flat-out cramped. It was definitely a more pleasant shopping atmosphere than we had expected.

Some things really are constants in the CompUSA universe, though. All of the PowerBooks were either off completely, or stuck at the Password Protection screen, making them useless as demo models. There were several poor souls (ourselves included) wandering the aisles of the tiny Apple store-within-a-store, looking lost and vulnerable, with nary a salesperson to be found. (There were plenty wheeling and dealing fifteen feet away in the PC section, of course.) Even on Mac OS 8.5's intro day, there was nobody demonstrating the software-- but it was after six by the time we got there, and we're sure we just missed the festivities. On the way out, we were eyed suspiciously by a security guard who checked our receipt before letting us leave. And while the atmosphere wasn't really appropriate for the presence of a giant stocking ladder blocking the Apple area, instead the Mac OS 8.5 boxes were on a shelf obscured by a big supporting pillar. But hey, it is a CompUSA, after all...