Another Surplus Store Gone

meci was sort of way back. I still have an electronic store close to my house near Pittsburgh. Unheard of these days. They still have tube selection. Barno Electronics.

Greg

That's more accurate than you might think!

I once, and only once, looked at the Rational Clearcase source code control diagram showing the diagram of the check in branches.

Up until v3, the diagram was the usual trunk and branches you would expect to see.

At v4 and after it looked like a kudzu infestation. Not only was there an uncontrolled explosion of branches, but some of them looped backwards to other branches. I have no idea what that might have meant, and I decided not to enquire.

But the Domain Specific Language it was written in had explicit condtructs for nodes, events and transitions to other nodes. Hence it /was/ an FSM.

For many of us, surplus stores or mail order were the only source for parts. Dayton was full of distributors who didn't sell to individuals. Some would only sell to industrial accounts.

I was lucky as a kid. My uncle gave me dead TVs and radios, and Radio Parts Corp (on Lee Circle, a streetcar ride from my house) would sell to anyone, and usually gave me the parts for free. One day the owner Irv Levy gave me a 10-turn pot and dial. Radio Parts is gone, and so is Lee Circle.

It was not unusual in those days to see a dead tube TV out on the street, or know a neighbor who wanted to get rid of one. So tv-type parts were free.

That's not going to be very accurate but doesn't really constitute a proper hairball.

A guy we met designed some horrific stuff for detecting tin droplets. Excepting present company, physicists should be forbidden by law from ever designing electronics. Chemists, also; I have stories about that too.

The SRS boxes are, at the human interface level, all diabolical. Some of the circuits are ghastly too.

When I was young and stupid, I designed sequential hairball logic, with RCs and one-shots and things. Well, parts were expensive. Then a vet of TI showed me state machines. At TI, they were not allowed to use the presets or clears of flops, even at powerup. He designed politically correct monsters.

I still design async hairball logic now and then, and still like one-shots. Sometimes it works.

One big mistake that people make in state machines, hardware or software, is not latching all the inputs broadside at entry time. In software, one common mistake is not understanding, and accounting for, all the possible states.

Well, MECI made it to the Grand Daughter, and she did the best she could. Now my only excuse to ever go to Dayton will be the National Museum of the US Airforce and a really good sub shop down town. The problem was their pa rts stock was stuck in the 40's, 70s and 80s.. But still have many fond mem ories. Whomever got the "vacuum tube" room at auction is now wealthy.

There is still HGR Industrial in Cleveland with some serious test instrumen ts and machine tools, Electronic Surplus Inc, in Cleveland is now web on ly but the semiconductor stock is amazing, Midwest Electronics on the othe r side of Dayton by the AF base, and JDM Surplus in Crestline which does both walk in and Ebay...

Steve

There will not be a Big Box left other then for food and lumber. Amazon around here is taking over EVERYTHING.

Steve

WPAFB. It was about 50 years ago, the last time that I was there. The same for the Army museum a g Ft. Rucker, Alabama.

There was a surplus store in Los Alamos that sold stuff from LANL, the original bomb lab. I got a Krytron there. They had all sorts of stuff, some sold by the lab by mistake.

It was fun to poke through the surplus stores.

I had all the junk TVs that I could handle. Not only did a shop give them t o me, they delivered them to our house. The two car garage and my workshop were full of them, but everything was vacuum tube. Transistors were both ex pensive and hard to source in the '60s.

Well here we still have HGR. I could not imagine buying that place. All the space and the amount of business I have seen there nobody would want it un less it came with the building.

But I like it. You walk in you smell oil. We bought a bunch of scopes there and other test equipment, but they got mechanical things. And other shit, like they have, or had a few dialysis machines. Those will probably be part ed out eventually because to run them you need filters and fluids and to co nnect it to the water line and drain.

The electronics, they are weird. I have no idea why but I bought a like 20 ohm 100 watt pot. It is mounted in a wood box. I just thought it was cool.

Got a couple of Fluke benchtop meters there and I found out something. If t hey have the battery option forget it. The rang of shit they have is pretty impressive. They are on the web and I think maybe they ship. But you could always call a trucking company and do an LTL. In fact some of the shit the y got is not LTL. it is L.

This is one of those places where when you hear the towmotor coming you get out of the way.

Time to give them a visit actually.

d.

he US Airforce and a really good sub shop down town. The problem was their parts stock was stuck in the 40's, 70s and 80s.. But still have many fond m emories. Whomever got the "vacuum tube" room at auction is now wealthy.

ents and machine tools, Electronic Surplus Inc, in Cleveland is now web only but the semiconductor stock is amazing, Midwest Electronics on the ot her side of Dayton by the AF base, and JDM Surplus in Crestline which doe s both walk in and Ebay...

As a young boy, Electronic Surplus was my mecca (back when it was in downto wn Cleveland). The many industries and government contractors were great so urces for them. You could find bargains on some electronic parts. It was a great option for me (when Radio Shack was too expensive). The surplus semiconductors, mil-spec, JAN-rated, etc., were overpriced until (and if) t hey got further discounted low enough. Nowadays, it seems they are stuck with a lot of old small parts that don't seem competitively priced. E.g., $5.98 for a phototransistor

-phototransistors

...

I asked a friend in the business. He'd talked to Sandy within the last few months. They sold the property to be turned into condos.

Having been there many times, I'm not surprised. The main building had 7-8 floors and was ~0.5E6 ft^2, i.e. HUGE. It was originally the Charles Kettering factory to make electric starters for those horseless carriages.

Dayton Daily News has imagery:

^^^^^^^^^^ most contrived description of square footage, ever

sure about that?

e for the Army museum a g Ft. Rucker, Alabama.

Hmmm, I have been going to WPAFB, more specifically AFRL for some work I d o for them. The museum is a cool place. Tucked away in some corners of AF RL are flight sims and aircraft testing SILs from the 60s and 70s which is not opern to the public...cool stuff. J

uld.

the US Airforce and a really good sub shop down town. The problem was thei r parts stock was stuck in the 40's, 70s and 80s.. But still have many fond memories. Whomever got the "vacuum tube" room at auction is now wealthy.

uments and machine tools, Electronic Surplus Inc, in Cleveland is now we b only but the semiconductor stock is amazing, Midwest Electronics on the other side of Dayton by the AF base, and JDM Surplus in Crestline which d oes both walk in and Ebay...

town Cleveland). The many industries and government contractors were great sources

they

ir-phototransistors Last time I was in clevanland, maybe 5 years ago, I was walking around the area by the Great Lakes Brewery and stumbled on an electronics surplus stor e that was on the small side but had stuff stacked from floor to ceiling: t est equipment, TVs, radios, stereo gear, old apple and Dell PCs...lots of ' parts bins' Forget the name of the place - maybe it was electronic surplu s? For an instant, I was back in the 90s j

It was on the corner of Bolivar and something. They have moved out east to Mentor and are not half what they used to be.

That is ESI out in Mentor. They claim their insurer wont let them do walk in retail or pickup counter retail any more. Shame. I used to be an ardent customer.

Steve