3 Days in San Jose, hits/pits

From: Bruce Lane <kyrrin_at_bluefeathertech.com>
Date: Sat Jul 14 09:52:00 2001

At 23:19 06-08-2000 -0800, Mike Ford wrote:

>ES Electronic Solutions on Brokaw, not too exciting. Too well organized
>(shelves of cardboard bins with contents marked) and fully retail priced
>stuff. I bought a few coax crimp connectors from the clearance bin, and

        <schlorp>

        Huh? Excess Solutions is one of the best possible places for small parts and oddities like rack slides. I've shopped at them frequently, and would not call many of their prices anywhere near "fully retail."

        I'm sorry you didn't find them that helpful.

>enough new stuff to keep people coming in. I found a box of Apple II/PC
>joysticks and bought all the A2 compatible ones, but mostly it was like the
>first place.

        There I will agree. His test gear prices are, for the most part, way too high.

>RA, on Walsh east of Layfette. Nice BIG warehouse of junk electronics, but
>computer stuff was just incidental. I found a box of junk connectix

        <snip>

        RA is mainly industrial stuff. I got a good deal on a pair of HP power supplies when I was there in July, but they've been (unfortunately) thoroughly contaminated by E-pay for the most part. They have a guy who cherry-picks through their test gear, and weeds out the better stuff for auction.

>HSC, off the central expressway, no idea how I got to it. Very much like
>the first two places, too tidy, too retail. This isn't really that bad, I

        <schlorp>

>nothing got me excited during the visit. Some prices were comically high,
>but some were OK if you needed the item. Big collection of data books to

        <schlorp again>

        You must have spotted the same stripped-down/overpriced Compaq servers that I saw. ;-)

        HSC has a horrid habit of senseless cherry-picking, and those servers were a great example. The morons in the warehouse stripped out the CPU boards, bagged 'em, and (over)priced them separately from the already-overpriced cases.

        As for their test gear, don't even get me started. Do you know they've had much of the same stuff in their as-is test gear section for at least three, maybe as long as four years, all because they just won't lower the prices?
        
        As for gas, food, and hotel rates, I'm a little surprised. Gas should have come down a bit by now. Food's always been expensive. I'm stunned that any Holiday Inn would be able to get that kind of rate for any sort of room. I'm deeply grateful that I have relatives to stay with during my scrounge trips.

        I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to go farther north, up into San Leandro, and visit Quinn Electronics. They're still very much a surplus store in the truest sense of the word. Gather a pile, bring it up front, and haggle on a price.

        I do hope your trip held enough hits to make it worth running over the pits. ;-)
Received on Sat Jul 14 2001 - 09:52:00 BST