Before there were Apple Stores, before big box retailers like Best Buy, there were the mom and pop computer shops. It’s where you’d go to buy your first Apple computer, where you’d get supplies like floppy disks and perforated computer paper (one long sheet of paper, perfed into individual pages, sprocket feed holes on the side). More importantly, it’s where you’d go to get your questions answered, buy your software (or find shareware), and get your computer fixed.

The very first of these shops was FirstTech in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

When Apple first began selling its pioneering personal computers in the late 1970s, its first batch of machines went to Team Electronics in the Twin Cities.

Team Electronics eventually morphed into FirstTech, a Minneapolis tech dealer that has prided itself on being the world’s first Apple reseller — and being symbiotically associated with the Cupertino, Calif.-based personal-technology giant.

Soon, though, FirstTech will be no more.

The independent Uptown purveyor of Macintosh machines and Apple iOS mobile devices said Wednesday it is closing. Its last day is March 29. A going-out-of-business sale begins Thursday.

A sad, sad day.