5 Feb
2015
5 Feb
'15
9:26 p.m.
On 2015-Feb-05, at 3:43 PM, Rod Smallwood wrote:
On 05/02/2015 22:33, Fred Cisin wrote:
.. how things change ..
When I was a kid in the 70's, Vancouver (Canada) was a backwater city situated on the
edge of civilisation.
At that time we had half-a-dozen real, industrial-grade electronic suppliers, in addition
to the plethora of RS stores and such lower-grade component sources sprinkled around the
region.
40 years later, Vancouver is a "world-class" city, assessed by some or other as
the second most expensive real-estate on the planet, the most expensive to live in North
America, a player in the "global economy".
We are now down to 2 or 3 small-to-mid-size stores to which one can go to buy an
off-the-shelf transistor or IC or capacitor.
(Quoted phrases above presented with some note of derision.)
On Thu, 5 Feb 2015, Ali wrote:
Radio Shack or as they were known in the UK - Tandy - Are long gone from here.
We have a UK alternative called Maplin. They have recently moved into being
flashy high stores selling own brand consumer electronics and mobile phone
accessories. The component side in the store is minimal.
Their on line store is still good for some hard to get components.
We do have Farnell, CPC and RS components,
They are mail order only but have huge number of different stock lines.
I also buy within the EEC as there is no customs duty to pay and VAT is the same as here
or less. RadioShack had it essentially right in the 2014
Super Bowl commercial -
the 80s called and they did want their store back. What they screwed up
was thinking that meant the old store had to go and be replaced with the
current monstrosity.
RadioShack should have brought back the store of the 1980s and updated
it items like cheap cables, Raspberry Pi kits, etc. I.E. hobbyist and do
it yourself stuff. Yes, they still would have to close a number of
locations (do you really need a ratshack on every corner?) but what
would have been left behind would have thrived...
No, they would have had to take
it back to the 1960s and 1970s.
By the 1980s, Radio Shack was already committed to changing from hobbyist
supplies to crappy consumer electronics.