🚀 go-pugleaf

slmdj@cc.usu.edu writes:

>In article <BxBzJK.BqK@news.udel.edu>, bew@brahms.udel.edu (Ben Williams) writes:
>> 
>> I've just read this thread containing 50+ complaints about Radio Shack.
>> What I would like to know is:  Why do we have to shop at RS to get
>> electronic supplies?  Why aren't there other electronic stores in
>> competition with RS?

Sure there is...  Circuit City, The Good Guys, Silo, Sears, Montgomery Ward,
even Robinson's and May Company...

Oh, you mean for electronic components?  Well, when was the last time your
mother needed a 10K ohm resistor and a handful of 74LS00's?  I'm afraid
that at "onesies", there's not enough profit to make selling components
worthwhile unless you raise the price like RS does.

>>  I still would like the option at least to do business elsewhere.
>> You know, like maybe an electronics store where the salesmen know what
>> they are talking about...

All the EE's are busy getting good money designing stuff.

In some areas in California, there is a Fry's Electronics - they actually
do a pretty decent job of keeping their price low and their selection wide
enough...  But there's only one Fry's in the Los Angeles area.  (Fry's,
BTW, is sort of a K-Mart for electronic/tech hobbyists/pro's.  _B_I_G_! )

>> Ben Williams
>> bew@brahms.udel.edu

>us hobbyists around.  I have found my best (and cheapest) source of parts to be
>an electronics teacher I once had who works at the local vocational school...

If you have time, mail ordering parts is the best way.  And if you're into
electronics, there's no excuse for not ordering "common" parts and keeping
a stockpile.

And worst come to worst, I just scavenge discarded PCB's that I find
lying around the campus...
-- 
Joseph Chiu, Dept. of Computer Science, Caltech.    josephc@coil.caltech.edu
1-57 California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91126. +1 818 449 5457 
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