21–30 of 57 posts
Digi-Key sells everything, and will let you buy in onesies and twosies without screwing you on the price. Maybe Monoprice for cables, but that's rare.
The one time I needed a DB-9 gender changer in a hurry and paid freaking $20 for it was the day I decided I was done with RadioShack. You served a great purpose, dear friend, but times have changed. I still have my Pocket PC-1 for the memories.
"But his shop is a lone outpost; in a single generation, the American who built, repaired, and tinkered with technology has evolved into an entirely new species: the American who prefers to slip that technology out of his pocket and show off its killer apps. Once, we were makers. Now most of us are users." So humbling and true. Most people will throw out any given piece of technology rather than try and repair it. An…
"But his shop is a lone outpost; in a single generation, the American who built, repaired, and tinkered with technology has evolved into an entirely new species: the American who prefers to slip that technology out of his pocket and show off its killer apps. Once, we were makers. Now most of us are users." So humbling and true. Most people will throw out any given piece of technology rather than try and repair it. An…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
SparkFun is awesome, but sometimes I need to have that electronic piece right away so I can finish my project this weekend. It would be awesome if there was enough of a market to have electronics parts stores in most cities.
I highly recommend You-Do-It Electronics Center in Needham, MA for those in the Greater Boston metro area. It's better even than the golden years of Radio Shack. If you need parts, this is your store. http://www.youdoitelectronics.com/ Edit: added link Edit: moved comment from top-level to this thread; seemed more apropos
Goddammit folks! Go find your parts on Octopart and help a YC company out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I highly recommend You-Do-It Electronics Center in Needham, MA for those in the Greater Boston metro area. It's better even than the golden years of Radio Shack. If you need parts, this is your store. http://www.youdoitelectronics.com/ Edit: added link Edit: moved comment from top-level to this thread; seemed more apropos
Until I went in, I had imagined You-Do-It as like a make-your-own pottery type of place, except with instructors and kits showing you how to make radios and toasters instead of pottery. This idea was very exciting to me...
oddly enough, there is a market for do-it-yourself still. I don't know how big, but interest in sparkfun, make magazine, makerbot, and arduino signifies it's anything but dead to me.
That's precisely where Radio Shack should be focusing its effort. They should outfit their stores with high-end 3d printers and fabrication machines and retool themselves as a sort of Hardware Kinko's. Some one's going to fill that niche Real Soon Now, regardless.
That said, when it is time, Radio Shack can always move into that space too. However, what's more likely is that fab machines will come down in price quickly enough that people can have their own.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's precisely where Radio Shack should be focusing its effort. They should outfit their stores with high-end 3d printers and fabrication machines and retool themselves as a sort of Hardware Kinko's. Some one's going to fill that niche Real Soon Now, regardless.
It's still too soon. That said, when it is time, Radio Shack can always move into that space too. However, what's more likely is that fab machines will come down in price quickly enough that people can have their own.
That said, modern ink-jets would be marvels of precision mechanics when I was in college. Things change in a decade or so.