new york based electronics supply

I can't make any specific recommendations, but browsable electronic parts shops are just about extinct - there's almost no market for it anymore in North America.

But don't despair - for example, Digi-key has online data sheets and photographs of many parts. If you get a printed copy of the catalogue, you can browse the book as you would a store and and then access the web instead of scrunching a little plastic bag. It's a pale imitation of the real experience but then, Digi-key's warehouse stocks more stuff than any electronics shop ever could.

-- Joe

Yeah, I had a feeling about this. But when i'm in St. Louis I go to Gateway Electronics and I just can't believe that there isn't a NY- based counterpart.

thanks again, paul

I would like to know the percentage of their catlog which is non stocked items.

Still have one walk-in near Pittsburgh, but they were never big on browsing.

greg

It's pretty low, in my experience, for the stuff that ends up in the catalog -- certainly no worse than the percentage of items that are out of stock on any given day at the old-style walk-in electronics store.

DigiKey is one of the few "main line" distributors that really does stock the bulk of what they sell -- places like Avnet don't have anywhere near as much available immediately.

And of course you can check stock on-line, which is convenient.

I've known shops like that as well... my guess has always been that they figure anyone browsing is generally going to be going after low dollar items and it's not worth the hassles if they figure they always need to keep a close eye on shoppers due to theft problems or something. Weird...