Looking inside before you buy etc.

At 09:01 13-06-2000 -0800, Mike Ford wrote: <schlorp> I don't know that it was a mistake, per se. Got a little story I'd like to share along the same lines. Back about 1994, a year or so after my mate and I first moved to Washington, I was in serious BASSW (Bay Area Surplus Store Withdrawal). To make matters worse, it was late fall, season-wise, and I was having serious trouble adapting to WA state's lower sunny-day count (translation: I was depressed and grouchy). So, I grabbed up the phone book and went digging. A new entry came to light: Specifically, the PC-FIXX Clearance Center, purveyor of Used Parts and Other Goodies. I already knew about PC-FIXX by reputation -- they specialized in repair and upgrade of PCs and, in some rare cases, "other" systems. I went up and had a look. They had a nice as-is alley, though most of the prices were inflated, but I still found my first EISA SCSI adapter for $5. The variety of stuff they had was pretty amazing, and I could tell that they were still in their "we-just-opened" chaos phase. The place went downhill from there, sadly. Prices went up, and selection went down. Then, about a year later, a miracle hit. The entire used-parts division was sold to two fellows, Mark Dabek and Steve Hess, who promptly renamed it RE-PC and rejuvenated the entire store. I continued to visit, and I kept asking about (and sometimes even finding) exotic hardware that practically no one else wanted -- EISA stuff, Sun systems, etc. My visits got to be so regular that not only did the owners and staff get to know me, and I them, but they started drawing on my knowledge and skills. Finally, when they started getting big loads of retired Sun stuff from a local service place, they became overwhelmed because of a lack of experience with SCSI hardware. I stepped in with an offer of help (I was well set up to test SCSI stuff at the time) which was gratefully and quickly accepted. I ended up testing over 100 drives over time, disk and tape alike. To this day, I have friends at both stores (Seattle and Tukwila), and I can say with confidence that I've known the owners for years. And what did I get out of all this? Excellent deals on some of those same drives, good friends, an OK to do a detailed inspection on anything I'm thinking of buying, good contacts in the other computer surplus areas (minis and such), and even a job when I most needed it after a layoff (yes, I actually worked for them for about five months). And all that just because I chose, at one depressed moment, not to give up on a place that was going downhill at the time. I guess the moral of the story is, don't be afraid to reach out, even if you're confronted with an apparently insurmountable barrier (as I once thought I was). So it can be with surplus dealers. Ask them about something you're hunting for. Offer to help with a problem they might be having. Try to build up a good working relationship, at least, if not outright friendship. You never know where it will lead, and the risk is minimal. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77 "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."