On 08/13/2012 12:30 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
I went to three different stores to buy a piece of
perf board, and ended
up getting a used one at Halted (with Haltek printed on it!). The section
at Frys was completely empty at the Palo Alto and Sunnyvale store.
I can get it from dozens of places on line, if I wanted to wait a couple
of days and pay shipping, though I probably spent more than that on gas.
I was just complaining on Saturday that the price for things like wire-wrap
sockets have tripled in the last couple of years, if you can even find
them.
The parts stocks in the valley surplus places are drying up. Halted was
completely out of stock of 9 through 25 pin D connectors. This is bad news
for finding old parts that used to be really common to keep systems going.
You can't really buy a lot of this kind of stuff on line, you need to LOOK
at it to see if you can make it work if it doesn't exactly match.
For stuff like this, I agree 100%. :-(
From my point of view though, such places never existed in the first
place, anywhere near driving distance of where I've always lived. ;)
The only exception to that has been Skycraft Surplus in Orlando FL, but
that was (when I lived in FL) still a 2.5hr drive, and their prices
border on the obscene.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA