Radio Shack abandons components

This is only another sign of the trend. Whereas, some 20+ years back, it was no problem to go out and buy IC's and passives, which could easily be reworked, today's ultra dense and surface mounted technology is so difficult to work by hand that board-level repair is very difficult with tools likely to be in the hobbyist's kit. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what that's done to the market. Consequently, there's little sense in having a worldwide components distribution network, as Radio Shack has had for >25 years. Today's electronic gadgets have a hundred+ components per square inch of PCB, and most of them are difficult to remove/replace without damaging them or the board. For me, it's enough of a problem if I just drop one part. Resistors, capcitors, and inductors are the size of a pinhead nowadays, and you need not only a microscope to read the designators on them, but a vast library to interpret the markings. The retail space is too valuable to use for something that no longer serves the public interest, or the corporate coffers. What's more, the economy benefits more from replacement of a PCB than from its repair, though it costs you, the end-user, more, and generates more rubbish in the landfill. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck McManis" <cmcmanis(a)mcmanis.com> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 9:11 AM Subject: Re: Radio Shack abandons components