Discrete Schottky?

You may have overestimated those figures. Here in the U.S. each newcomer inherits his/her portion of the national debt, whilst those who exit early have generally failed to pay their share. Welchers.

But as to the spirit of your post...I've got nearly a hundred of everything, you can't take 'em with you, and I'm local to Watson.

Payment? Yes, received in advance. (His posts, of course, detailing his electronic adventures. I enjoy them.)

I enjoy swapping parts with my buddies at the local -- you guessed it -- swapmeets. Today, for example, a pal boasted he got a coffee can 2/3rds full of 2n2219's last week for $1. I snagged a reel of 74HCT132Ds, some 50 & 100 gigohm resistors, with AD549k fA op amps, some voltage references, polypropylene caps, & a few other gizmos. Total cost < $10.

You can see how it's easy to load up on parts.

Not bought: a 5 1/2 digit Fluke DMM, offered for $25. I hemmed over this one a while, but, already having three of like capability, couldn't justify yet another.

Electronics is fun.

Cheers, James

Stop me first! My favorite notebook, an HP OmniBook 600, came from there, as did six or eight of its brethern. With modern LiIon cells retrofitted into its pack, Win3.1, & a compact flash replacing its original hard drive, the thing is lightning fast, dead silent (no moving parts), runs all day & suspends perfectly for months on a single charge, all without error.

The 1-second availability is grand & allows me to use it just like a book -- I pick it up, turn it on, and am back exactly where I left off minutes, days, or weeks before. I write or calculate or check my parts-inventory as desired, then put it back down. MS Word 6.0 and Excel work wonderfully, and faster on this '486/75 than on my bigger, 'faster' machine with 100x the CPU. This is how computers *should* be.

I wrote a small BASIC program on it that simulates an LED-driving converter circuit, accurately, but making somewhat profligate use of the CPU. It's a one-off, and I was lazy. Even so, response time is faster than my persistence-of-vision, as the results are up before my after-image of the previous screen has faded. Sweet.

eBay...sigh. Is there no rest for the weary?

Cheers, James