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Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

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Re: Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

#21

Post by milesokeefe »

jey wrote: post #3
coreyp_1 wrote: post #2

I'm sad to see Radio Shack so far from the "builders" market. I had to run to RS this weekend to try to find a part, only to find 3 salespeople who had no idea of how components or soldering worked. They seemed amazed that I would actually design my own circuits, while I look at what I am doing and consider it to be a bit amateurish. :(

You could move to Berkeley, where we still have Al Lasher's Electronics right in downtown with knowledgeable staff.

Unfortunately that's the only component shop in town. IIRC I couldn't even find one in SF to my amazement.

Kudos to Al Lasher's though, there's few places like that still around.

Re: Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

#22

Post by mikestew »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #2

I'm sad to see Radio Shack so far from the "builders" market. I had to run to RS this weekend to try to find a part, only to find 3 salespeople who had no idea of how components or soldering worked. They seemed amazed that I would actually design my own circuits, while I look at what I am doing and consider it to be a bit amateurish. :(

They seemed amazed that I would actually design my own circuits

That shouldn't surprise you, RS employees have never had electronics knowledge. I forget the details, but as one example I remember a conversation while trying to get a replacement battery for a cordless phone for a friend of my girlfriend at the time (who is now my wife, meaning it was well over 20 years ago). Again, forget the details, but employee argued that it couldn't be the battery because "blah blah blah". It holds a charge for 34.6 seconds after charging it overnight and then has about 0.2V, what do you think the problem might be, oh Electronics Wizard?

Back when employees would at least try to pretend to be knowledgable, they'd argue with you if you made the mistake of letting them know what you're building. "You're building a FooBar? No, no, you need a WhatsaHoosit." You mean this article from a guy who forgets more about electronics than you and I will ever know is wrong?

EDIT: that said, when I went to buy some resistors a few weeks ago to fake a display on our headless Mac OS build server, a couple of bucks got me a card of five of them. So I don't know what is missing from supplying the "builders" market.

Re: Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

#23

Post by 205guy »

thelazydogsback wrote: post #11

"[book] gave us the secret ... sealed enclosure created two separate acoustic environments ... one inside the speaker enclosure ... and one outside, where the microphones were" I would have thought that part of the design would have been self-evident? As a TRS-80 owner starting in 1979 I also morn the loss of the inventor/creator version of Radio Shack - hung out there often walking back from school and many started…

> the design would have been self-evident > it just "seems" obvious

I really don't understand what these comments bring to this discussion, or any discussion. Evidently, you were not there, and a person who was is telling us the story. Your opinion that the past facts don't align with your expectations is not relevant.

Re: Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

#24

Post by hibbelig »

bluedino wrote: post #16

>> Working from those insights, we built our first physical model in a single weekend using plastic panels from the hobby shop, hot glue, and an off-the-shelf paper-cone speaker. Who needs a 3D printer?

In the early nineties they didn't have one.

Re: Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

#26

Post by im_down_w_otp »

StavrosK wrote: post #13
jey wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could move to Berkeley, where we still have Al Lasher's Electronics right in downtown with knowledgeable staff.

The main problem is that, if the staff know about how to design circuits, why are they working at an electronics store?

There are lots and lots of knowledgeable people who are also very, very bad at the self-promotion that's necessary to get high-paying jobs in "industry".

Re: Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

#27

Post by phil21 »

mikestew wrote: post #22
coreyp_1 wrote: post #2

I'm sad to see Radio Shack so far from the "builders" market. I had to run to RS this weekend to try to find a part, only to find 3 salespeople who had no idea of how components or soldering worked. They seemed amazed that I would actually design my own circuits, while I look at what I am doing and consider it to be a bit amateurish. :(

They seemed amazed that I would actually design my own circuits That shouldn't surprise you, RS employees have never had electronics knowledge. I forget the details, but as one example I remember a conversation while trying to get a replacement battery for a cordless phone for a friend of my girlfriend at the time (who is now my wife, meaning it was well over 20 years ago). Again, forget the details, but employee arg…

> So I don't know what is missing from supplying the "builders" market.

It's an extremely small selection, compared to what it was in the early 90's (that I remember - and I remember older folks complaining about how far it had gone down hill even then).

There just is no store I can wander around these days (or series of stores) where I can visualize exactly what I need to build some project. For example I needed recently to put some electronics in a waterproof outdoor box, and cable it up nice with proper waterproof conduit.

For someone who has done that sort of thing 500 times for work, you know exactly what to order and what everything is called and how it will fit. For someone who never has I really miss just being able to go to a hobby/electronics store and actually see the components I'd need to put something together - usually modifying my plans in the process as I see what is available I never knew existed before.

This makes "making things" really hard for the beginner and removes a ton of spontaneous "lets just figure it out and get it done" type of projects - at least for me. There is no store to run back to to swap out that $1.50 component I bought the wrong part number of. Minutes/hours of latency to days at best.

Re: Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

#28

Post by bm1362 »

Never thought I'd see Polycom on HN. Interned for 2 complete years at Polycom, mainly writing internal tools and doing random IT work. I had little oversight and was free to use any framework/language to solve a variety of problems -- I ended up teaching myself a ton of stuff which led to freelance gigs. Lots of cool older engineers, but I got the feeling the culture was dying off.

Re: Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

#29

Post by xyzzy123 »

phil21 wrote: post #27
mikestew wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seemed amazed that I would actually design my own circuits That shouldn't surprise you, RS employees have never had electronics knowledge. I forget the details, but as one example I remember a conversation while trying to get a replacement battery for a cordless phone for a friend of my girlfriend at the time (who is now my wife, meaning it was well over 20 years ago). Again, forget the details, but employee arg…

> So I don't know what is missing from supplying the "builders" market. It's an extremely small selection, compared to what it was in the early 90's (that I remember - and I remember older folks complaining about how far it had gone down hill even then). There just is no store I can wander around these days (or series of stores) where I can visualize exactly what I need to build some project. For example I needed rec…

One way to get around this is to buy bulk assorted components off aliexpress or eBay. The prices are better than they've ever been, but yeah, time lag in supply chain (1 month or so) really sucks.

Re: Polycom’s co-founder on the best investment he ever made

#30

Post by kw71 »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #29
phil21 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I don't know what is missing from supplying the "builders" market. It's an extremely small selection, compared to what it was in the early 90's (that I remember - and I remember older folks complaining about how far it had gone down hill even then). There just is no store I can wander around these days (or series of stores) where I can visualize exactly what I need to build some project. For example I needed rec…

One way to get around this is to buy bulk assorted components off aliexpress or eBay. The prices are better than they've ever been, but yeah, time lag in supply chain (1 month or so) really sucks.

Beware, some of that stuff is extremely sketchy. Stuff that you used to take for granted, like ceramic capacitors, are being mismarked or poorly made now. What good is an assortment of X7R grade caps anyway, even if they are not out of spec?
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