On 3 Nov 2006 at 19:52, 9000 VAX wrote: I've purchased from them--does not appear to be in the same category at all--mostly discontinued and surplus stuff. How about a CPLD or FPGA development kit, or a dual CPU Z180-8051 development system? USB/ethernet interface modules? And those 4" 7-segment displays with built-in-controller. Not to mention the robotics kits. Cheers, Chuck

On 4 Nov 2006 at 23:47, Roger Merchberger wrote: Speaking of 68K, have you seen the Innovasic Fido 1100 MPU? Innovasic also offers a direct replacement for the AMD 2901A--in PDIP yet! http://www.innovasic.com/ Cheers, Chuck

9000 VAX wrote: Duurrr. Looking at my parts list and typing at the same time may be a bad thing. Try this instead - 2 0.1uF ceramic caps Doc

At 7:13 AM -0500 11/4/06, Tim Shoppa wrote: I'm still shocked that Digi-Key sent me this huge catalog I have sitting here, after I purchased parts to build a Serial Interface for my C64. While I put in a good order of parts for the project, I also purchased quite a several of them from Radio Shack. Not being someone that builds a lot, it really helps to be able to see in person what I'm purchasing! There is a local electronic's store, plus Fry's that I can go to, but they're both out of the way, and I can only hit the electronic's store on the weekend due to when it closes. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On 4 Nov 2006 at 11:19, woodelf wrote: When ICs were very dear, PP wasn't such a bad deal, even if they offered mostly floor sweepings. I was surprised at how many ICs in one of their assortments didn't even have plating on the pins. But I last bought from PP when RTL and DTL were all the rage. Cheers, Chuck

On 11/5/06, David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> wrote: I bought a few when I was a kid playing with 50-in-one kits and such. I still have a few components in my drawer from that era (LEDs and caps and 2n222s, mostly) -ethan

On Sat, 4 Nov 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: The 1/4W resistor packs weren't that bad. I still have some of the more uncommon values from those in my cabinets. The electrolytic capacitor packs were also pretty good for bread boarding / general experimentation. I never was too crazy about the ceramic capacitor assortment packs though. They never seemed to contain much in the way of useful values. The LED packs were also a lot of fun. Where else could you pay $1.50-$2.00 for a pile of weird looking and one of a kind leds? :) -Toth

On 9 Nov 2006 at 10:35, Ethan Dicks wrote: Does anyone remember when Montsanto offered a 2-LED sampler pack for about (IIRC) $2 and advertised it in Popular Electronics? When was that, the late 60's/early 70's? Cheers, Chuck

David Griffith wrote: I am still trying to forget!

I went looking for a friend's site, who had a business similar to Poly Paks, ACP Computers in Santa ana. I found a list referencing the Teknopak site, which may be of interest to those who buy things from Digikey that someone has compiled. http://www.edtmag.com/dista.htm contains a pretty large list of links to sites (which I did not vet) that may be others who sell small volumes of parts. ACP Components is similar to Teknopak, and if you need small volumes, I think they'd be friendly to such an order. If this is to much -Off Off topic, then I apologize, but I had not checked on what they had and this seemed useful. I know I promised to take Billy up for a visit to their warehouse to nose into dark corners for his projects, and still need to when he is feeling more like driving and probably taking a day off. such operations as ACP have huge stashes of "junk" parts they get in with good shipments of parts, and there is no way to list all the crap they have stashed which was custom, or modified, or house part numbers, but might be useful to hobbiests. Most get culled eventually and trashed (recycled) sad to say. http://www.acpcomponents.com/ Jim

On 4 Nov 2006 at 14:40, jwhitton wrote: What I don't understand is what keeps RS in business. It can't be mobile phones or Dish TV. Certainly not batteries (I think I still have an RS battery club card). A lot of what they sell in the way of cable, etc. can be puchased at Wal Mart and Home Depot. Cheers, Chuck

Chuck Guzis wrote: Yep, it is. I don't know if this has changed, but back when I worked there, cellular providers paid RS anywhere from $200 - $500 for each new customer we signed up. And, the salesperson's spiff on the sale wasn't counted against the store's P&L, because usually that, too, was funded by the cellular company. I would assume that the satellite provider (I don't remember if RS carries DirecTV or Dish Network), Sirius, and the other service-oriented electronics products RadioShack sells have similar deals. The store I worked at specifically was kept open because we sold cellular phones by the bucket-full. We'd sell a "back wall" product once a day, on a busy week. A mediocre salesperson (which I would count myself as one) would do one to two a day.

Richard wrote: I don't think Wal-mart acknowledge that RS232 exists, to be honest. I went in the other day to see how much they charged for a USB-serial adapter and they didn't appear to stock them (but they did have USB-parallel adapters, which suggests they know that USB adapter gadgets do exist) cheers Jules

On Wed, 8 Nov 2006, Kevin Handy wrote: And just try finding a decent quality powered breakout box with signal monitoring in the local "computer" shops these days... -Toth

I don't know if it can be simply stated as profit-chasing, but that is the ultimate outcome. The reality is, the "hobby" that we all practice has fewer and fewer members as time goes on and you can't profitably support a shrinking customer base given the high cost of running a chain retail store the size of Radio Shack. This is the same reason why I believe Heath-Kit went out of business -- people (well, enough to support the chain profitably) stopped building kits. Radio Shack can't make money off of pushing $0.99 74xx clips because the market is so narrow, the costs of stocking so high, and there are so many more places to get it for $0.29. Now, granted, some lead time is needed to get the $0.29 price, so you can't just run out to Digi-Key or Mouser and pick up a chip, but I bulk order stuff for various projects and "stock" some stuff myself. Also, some projects use similar components, so if I need a Max232 for a project, I'll order 2 or 3 because I know I'll need another one for something else. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of jwhitton Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 2:40 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Re: OT: Where have electronics hobby stores gone? gates I agree.., I'm appalled that RS has abandoned the hobbyist. It seems to be the trend..., retailers so driven by profit numbers and markets that they abandon those who put them in business in the first place. I've started haunting hamfests and buying almost any dip package logic I run across. If I needed ANY ordinary 74xx piece, there is no longer any place that it could be purchased where I live. *Maybe* as an outrageously priced ECG part from the one or two remaining repair shops..., but that's it. Sad...., and it bodes ill for the sort of Science Fair / Boy Scout level projects that kids might want to do..., oh, wait, I forgot, they've got video games and the Internet.. John

-----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Warren Wolfe Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 11:54 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: OT: Where have electronics hobby stores gone? Hey, it's worse than that. I recall seeing, about a year ago, an ad for an electronics project SIMULATOR in Windows software. You build the project, and it pretends to run it, and does what real components would do, producing a signal on screen, and as sound, if appropriate. *SIGH* -end snip- That actually sounds cool, kind of a electronic breadboard.....

At 11:19 AM -0700 11/4/06, woodelf wrote: I was stunned, we still have several in the area, and the one that is on my way home actually has a semi-decent selection. More importantly they had enough of a selection that I was able to get the parts I needed. I'd ordered the wrong Cap's from Digi-key, forgotten DB25 sockets, decided I wanted to add a reset switch for the C64, and liked the project boards at Rat Shack better than what I'd ordered able to get a replacement there. I don't know, maybe here in the Silicon Forest they still try to stock some of this. At the same time, the bulk of the store was trash I wouldn't consider getting, and the only reason I bought the parts there was the convenience factor. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On 4 Nov 2006 at 7:13, Tim Shoppa wrote: Has anyone really downloaded the ETT catalog and examined it? My point was that they offer a bewildering variety of educational and hobbyist kits--for Thai consumption. I could not care less about B&M store presence. While it's true we have our Jameco and JDR, their hobbyist and educational offerings are no match. While it's true that the business of hobbyist suppliers is a chicken- and-egg sort of situation, it's also the hobbyist market that keeps our professional ranks supplied. And the catalog should speak volumes as to where the West's supply of said professionals is headed. Just my 2 cents worth. Cheers, Chuck

Tim Shoppa wrote: I tend to favor 12AY7's , 6B4G's and light blue. http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/myamp1.jpg My amp is finished till next years model. :) Now if I could figure out this *stupid* digital camera and $#@! software.

Zane H. Healy wrote: Now if I can get it off the bench and listen to *music*.