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What about Melbourne ?

On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:21:20 +1000, Pete wrote:

Jock! - That's right.

That sounds right for the acronym. Boy, that brings back memories. :^)

When I was about 14 or so, I got an after-school job at a PC shop (OSI superboards, Commodore PETs, etc, in those days) that was a block or two up the hill from Ellistronics. The biggest seller at the shop I worked at was the OSI Superboard, (6502/2MHz, 4KB RAM) which was a really nifty single-board computer that was very popular with university EE & Computing students, & also with hobbyists. The Superboard was a very spartan beast - just a big PCB with rubber feet & a keyboard consisting of (real!) keyswitches soldered right onto the main PCB. No PSU, raw, B&W composite video output (32 x 32 chars, 8x8 pixel chars), RCA cables for your cassette deck, RAM expansion was catered for with 8 cheap sockets for another 8x 2114 RAM chips. Any time someone ordered one with the FULL 8KB of RAM, I'd duck out to Ellistronics to buy a bunch of 2114s, plug 'em in & run a memory checker to burn them in. (Memory check in BIOS? - What's a BIOS?) After seeing how much regulated 5VDC/5A PSUs cost, & how hard they were to get, I realised that it was a good opportunity to make a little cash, & designed a basic, rugged little PSU to suit them, which we could sell for something like 1/3rd the price of anything else we could find. I didn't make very much profit on them, but it was a very proud feeling to see people buying something I'd designed & built myself. I also built & sold RF modulators for the Superboards, but they were just a EA or ETI kit, so not as much fun as the PSUs. At the time I left the place to get a real job, I'd designed a programmable character generator for the Superboard, & had gotten about halfway through a hand-wired prototype.

(Radio Parts)

Huh - I had no idea.

They must have - I go past them regularly. ;^)

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Reply to
Lionel
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Actually Rocky not only moved into the same building they bought the remaining stock too. From my childhood I do remember All Electric Components and the special trips into the city ( i lived in Dandenong ) as a youngster on the train. I also have find memories of riding to the DSE in Springvale and hanging around there, used to love playing on the computers they had set up which I think were Cat's, System-80s, a Feranti (?) pc compatible and so on.

Mike

Reply to
Mike Paull

my

Yes, "Neveready" hasn't changed much over the years :-)

MrT.

Reply to
Mr.T

Hmm maybe it was Hardware Lane, or Little Lonsdale. I remember walking north along Hardware Lane to get to it, anyway. I think it closed in the mid to late 80s.

Reply to
rowan194

Lonsdale St, just up the hill from Elizabeth ?

Reply to
Ray

I was an electronics and communications student at the RMIT in the early

70s ... McGrath's - in Little Lonsdale, between Swanston and Elizabeth - was one of our happy hunting grounds. Spent many hours browsing there (probably goofing off from class, more like it).

Another place not mentioned in this thread (I don't think) was the disposals store in Lonsdale Street, opposite Myers. All I remember was scads of old stuff ... old (ex-wartime?) radios, equipment etc. The floor was uneven - in fact, it seemed as though the owners had just thrown coils of old cable on the floor and let everyone walk on it. (Found a similar-looking store - without the "unique" flooring - when I discovered the George Taylor disposals store outside Warrnambool, in south-west Victoria, many years later).

Reply to
Harold

"Harold" wrote

Another place not mentioned in this thread (I don't think) was the disposals store in Lonsdale Street, opposite Myers.

***** IIRC,the last gasps of Vealls,who were retailers, manufacturers of radio sets,tape recorders etc.

Brian g.

Reply to
Brian g

I don't think it was Vealls, Brian. ISTR Vealls being on the same side of Lonsdale as Myers, but just a bit closer to Swanston Street.

Reply to
Harold

"Harold" wrote

I don't think it was Vealls, Brian. ISTR Vealls being on the same side of Lonsdale as Myers, but just a bit closer to Swanston Street.

***** The mob I am (wrongly) thinking of were Homecrafts at 290 Lonsdale Street near the corner of Lonsdale St. and Drewery Lane which is on the opposite side of Londsale St to Myers.

Still need to find out about Vealls! (I do know they manufactured "Velco" radios and Tape Recorders).

Mea Culpa!!!!

Regards,Brian G

Reply to
Brian g

The store I am trying to remember was on the same side of Lonsdale Street as Homecrafts (I vaguely remember them being there), but just a bit further down towards Elizabeth Street.

Just found a dead link that referred to Vealls as being at 243 Swanston Street, Melbourne, and at 299 Chapel St, Prahran.

And there's a Vealls now listed at 63 Murphy Street in Richmond, which may be related to the original firm.

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Not required.

Ditto, H.

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Reply to
Harold

I lived in an inner city suburb for 25 years of my life and I still get Latrobe and Lonsdale confused. Yes, it was Lonsdale - no tram tracks!

Reply to
rowan194

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