To be honest, I'm quite surprised that there are any retail stores left
that sell electronic components to consumers.
Heck, last week I had to show identification to purchase windshield washer
fluid!
It seems that whenever somebody uses something to hurt somebody, then
knee-jerk reaction is to either ban the article outright, or to require
identification to buy it.
Someday, some wacked-out kid will build a bomb from components found at the
local Radio Shack, and the next thing you know - no more component sales.
I remember several years ago when some components used in the manufacture
of nuclear weapons were smuggled to either Iran or Iraq. The news media
started telling everyone what those components were, and some of the
components were special capacitors used for some portion of the weapon.
Some idiot at the local podunk newspaper found out that you could buy
capacitors at the Radio Shack downtown and wrote an article about just how
"easy" it could be to manufacture a nuclear device from stuff obtained
downtown. That dummy conveniently left out the difficulty for farmer John
in obtaining uranium suitable for the device.
I was always amazed that Radio Shack was selling components to complete
morons - and not getting sued. When I was an employee at Radio Shack, I was
very careful to size up the customer to the scope of the attempted project.
I didn't want to get dragged into court and have to defend myself against
some angry family members when their stupid son (or daughter) decided to
make a high-voltage power supply and succeeded in burning the house down.....
- Matt
At 07:57 AM 2/19/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>Worst part is that a small town (1500 pop) north of me has just opened a
>Radio Shack - they are blatently advertising that people can get parts for
>repairs and self-building - an open mis-advertisement to anyone that
>actually knows what RS has anymore. It's actually a RS dealer too, not a
>company store, so they carry less than the RS Co stores do. I was up there
>yesterday and asked the owner why he'd pay money to lie to people about them
>having just about anything to do repairs with, his answer was that he does
>have (or can order) about anything someone needs. So, my next Q was - where
>do you order from? The RS supply point? That point he got stuck on an
>finally mumbled that they were outside sources. I asked if these sources
>included MCM, Digikey, Mouser, Allied, etc - he was stunned that I was on to
>him.
>
>Of course I'm not on his favorite customer list now and I suggested that he
>might change the wording of his radio ads soon so that he's not misleading
>his prospective client/customer base.
>
>=> -----Original Message-----
>=> From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
>=> [mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Sellam Ismail
>=> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 4:57 AM
>=> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
>=> Subject: Re: From Scratch?... (was: Radio Shack (Was: STAPLES ....))
>=>
>=>
>=> On 18 Feb 2002, Frank McConnell wrote:
>=>
>=> > Take a look at <http://www.kce.com/junk.htm> for starters. Diffs that
>=> > I know of: Curtiss Trading Co. is gone. RA Enterprises is gone.
>=> > Sharon Industries is somewhere else now. Alltronics is apparently
>=> > mostly web-and-mail order these days, for a while they had moved in
>=> > with Schad but this appears to have not lasted.
>=>
>=> Alltronics still has a store front as far as I know. Prices are steep,
>=> not too much classic stuff anymore, and if there is the price is even
>=> steeper. I avoid going there.
>=>
>=> Sellam Ismail Vintage
>=> Computer Festival
>=> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>=> -------------
>=> International Man of Intrigue and Danger
>=> http://www.vintage.org
>=>
>=> * Old computing resources for business and academia at
>www.VintageTech.com *
Matthew Sell
Programmer
On Time Support, Inc.
www.ontimesupport.com
(281) 296-6066
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Received on Tue Feb 19 2002 - 08:42:31 GMT