Radio Shack abandons components

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
Date: Tue Nov 20 11:45:04 2001

Rumor has it that Neil Cherry may have mentioned these words:
>"Jeffrey S. Sharp" wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 20 Nov 2001, James L. Rice wrote:
> >
> > > my friend moved to a small town in Oklahoma,
> >
> > Unless he just really values the "don't use a turn signal 'cuz everyone
> > knows where I'm goin'" small-town society, please send your friend my
> > condolences. I've been there but managed to escape with (hopefully) more
> > of my life ahead than behind. :-)

Yes, but knowing that you 1) have only a few small-town teen hoodlums <sp?>
and you usually know what they're going to do before they do is a very nice
feeling sometimes...

Digi-key always seemed to expensive for my tastes -- at least for
everything that I need, Mouser seems a lot less expensive & I can attest
that they have *very* helpful and quite clueful staff, but when you need
that *weird* part, JDR & Jameco seem to keep a lot of older stuff in stock...

> > On the other hand, the cost of living in small-town Oklahoma is one of the
> > cheapest in the USA. For a concrete example, in my old hometown, a nice
> > 3750 ft^2 house with a huge property sold for US$70K. This means less
> > money spent living, more money to spend on classiccmping, and greater ease
> > in finding room to put all of it.

Damn! I could actually *afford* that - but the only thing that comes close
to big enough for me, the wife, 3 chilluns (& of course the computers) is a
handyman's [wet]dream...

>My wife an I have gotten pretty good at catalog shopping, so mail order
>works well for us. I'm finding that most of the local stores (even the
>malls) are selling lower quality items. Though I will say that Kmart has
>made a vast improvement since Martha Stewart got involved. The only thing
>we can't do mail order is food. I live in NJ and find that the area's
>restaurants stay open until ~midnight and we have a varied menu to
>choose from. I understand that Brooklyn has a more varied menu too.

No! Nooooooo! Not the food thing again!!!

>On the other note of piece meal components, I've found that with a lot of
>imagination one can take advantage of today's uControllers to build some
>of the coolest stuff. Processors cost ~$6, 3 pcbs (~2"x3") $50, add the
>components and a single hand built board can cost <$100. PLD's, FPGA, etc.
>etc.. Man do we live in interesting times (both good and bad).

Yes we do.

Roger "Merch" Merchberger
Received on Tue Nov 20 2001 - 11:45:04 GMT