This is a rant. Online shopping is great. "Great" because I hate driving, hate parking, hate crowds, hate waiting and hate most of all pushy, poorly informed sales staff. And mine is just the kind of attitude that is helping to destroy smaller retailers. So why the rant? Because I just ordered $200 worth of "maker" stuff from a really great NYC based warehouse called Adafruit. Adafruit would be a truly wonderful place to physically visit, but you can't. They don't sell OTC. They run one of the most informative websites on the planet and that website is the only way to buy anything from them. Now I am new at this coding and soldering crap and nowhere close to really knowing what I am doing. I look at a $10 push-button and think it will work with my stupid little project only to find out that the button is three times the size I had imagined. Were the dims listed in the item description? Of course they were. Did I read them? Of course not! But that's part of the problem. Physical shopping allows one to browse and touch. Seeing a thing in three dimensions helps inspire ideas in a way that a photo or gif cannot. I've just now opened this 1 meter cube cardboard box full of even more cardboard and bubble wrap along with the resistors, Trinkets and LCDs and marvel at how badly this heap matches what I really needed. The rant is at myself. And how I really miss the old days of aisles of electronic geakery that I hardly understand and have it explained to me by a pimply kid who makes little effort to hide his scorn for a middle-aged muddler. I actually miss the old pre-cell-phone Radio Shack. And I hate most of all cardboard delivery boxes.

You should try buying airplane stuff; it's even more convoluted in measurements, nomenclature, and costs a hundred times more than one thinks it should.

When a single pop rivet for ribs costs 25 cents (though eventually I found them for ten) and you know you'll need eight hundred of them it gets pretty expensive pretty fast.

Counter-rant:

(back in 1986) "I wish there was a way for me to buy at Radio Shack, it looks like they carry a ton of crap I'd like to buy, but I don't live in any of the countries where they do business."

There, I win.

BTW, Adafruit is one of the best places to buy electronic components because a) they have tones of useful "secondary" stuff (like a little board to help on something but not the main thing you want to build) so you don't have to build it by yourself and b) they have the datasheets and information and very complete examples on how to use the things they sell.

Prices I don't know, I never bothered comparing!

LOL! As soon as I read the title, I came to post the same thing.

There was one. It was called Radio Shack!

And you wonder why they went under....


It's your own fault!


Use it or lose it.

Interesting post Smokin Hole and I can definitely see where you're coming from.

As for me, I don't miss shopping at brick & mortar stores at all. Perhaps it mostly has to do with the fact that I live in a high population/high traffic region. I just got fed up dealing with long lines at the register and with trying to find a parking space.

It occured to me the other day that shopping has almost gone "full circle" from when I was a boy. Back then in Newfoundland; selection was not great and there was no such thing as a "self serve" store. You either ordered stuff from a catalogue like Eatons, Simpsons/Sears, or Princess Auto and waited for delivery ( 1950's online shopping ) or you went to a local merchant and talked to a snooting salesMAN weaing a suit and tie who went behind a door and came back with your items. You sometimes paid then but often were mailed a bill at the end of the month.

Jeeze I'm getting old

Last real geek stores we visited were in Mall of America this past January. Microsoft store
on one side and Apple across the hall and Radio Shack next door. Of all the stores in the
Mall, we hung out there most.

I've not seen any Microsoft stores in Miami. I would imagine they are mostly empty anyway. The Apple stores though down here are always packed.

If you live close to any check the Micro-Center stores: http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/

Link: pictures

Actually them going under had nothing to do with the sales of their hobby supplies. They maintained good sales figures right up until they restructured and tried getting their hands in other markets. Then once they over extended they raised hobby prices which forced the actual customers to go elsewhere. Had they remained the hobby store they once were they probably would still be around today. (speculation)

Agree with Master. The critical mistake made by Radio Shack is that they tried to go from serving a niche market of savvy electronics consumers to trying to compete with Best Buy and other big box electronics stores.

I rarely venture into town.There's nothing there anyway now although we did used to have a Radio Shack.

Here where I am we have Maplins.That's as close to a 'geek' shop as it's going to get around here I think. Trouble is,if I do go in and have a wander and see something I like I just go home and find it cheaper on-line.

I so miss the olden days when we had probably half a dozen or more computer outlets in the city,all selling PC games,some also the hardware.I would visit them all on my day off and most lunchtimes.As release day approached (usually for the next Microprose game) I would visit every day.'Is it in yet'? Kid in a sweet shop? You bet

There's a Microsoft Store and an Apple Store about 200 ft apart in the Florida Mall in Orlando.

Yes, the Apple Store is a lot busier, but I don't know necessarily how many people are actually buying vs browsing.




The Jedi Master

They went under because they changed their business models a long long time ago that made them Radio Shack and a favorite stores to everyone who wanted to build something electronic.

Yeah, 99% of all people in both the Microsoft and Apple stores were just browsers like us.
Apple store had more employees on the floor then customer browsers, fun to chat with them
though. Some had worked at both stores at one time or another.

I dunno. As SMD parts began to take over the market,
old style parts for manual assembly got hard to find
and more expensive, and working with SMD parts was
not really possible for the hobbyist. Now, there are
tools and processes so hobbyists can do SMD work, but
it is a completely different level than the old
hands on manual stuff. I think there was probably a
real gap in the sales volume for quite a few years;
and during that time all the new consumer electronics
was SMD, so there was little in the way of hobbyist
hacking of stock hardware. If you touched it, you
generally broke it irreparably, as most SMD parts
are unidentifiable.

H. R. Distributors

Come up to Portland ME and check out H. R. Distributors at 101 Hanover St. [:)]

Oh I know! :-)

Last week I bought an electric oil temperature gauge from Aircraft Spruce. Yesterday my mechanic's son and I spent hours trying to get the damn thing mounted (you have to see the space between tank and panel on a Pitts to know how tough this is) only to find out that the brackets from the 30 yo and now-extinct Scott gauge won't work. This is after we really scratched the circumference of the instrument in our efforts. So now I own a gauge and sending unit I can't use ($120). And, to solve the original problem I bought a new oil screen housing and vermatherm ($550). Airplanes are not for the faint-harded.