[sdiy] 3080s

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Tuesday 15 March 2005 06:38 pm, Gene Stopp wrote:
> yeah one of the sayings from high school was "hey let's get stoned and go
> to Apex"
>
> Really a cool place if you aren't actually looking for anything in
> particular. You really have to go there with serendipity in mind. One time
> they had Pratt/Read single-bus 5-octave keyboards there, brand new. Bought
> 2 I think. But Kevin's right, if you're in the back lot and a 5.5 quake
> hits, you might get flattened by an old jet engine or missle flight
> simulator. If you're inside the building they may never find your body.
>
> - Gene

Damn,  this reminds me too much of all those places that used to be in NYC 
down around Canal St.,  and before that on "radio row" and around there.

And damn,  those places are all *GONE*!  Sure wish they weren't...

There was one place I stumbled into somewhere in Philly a bunch of years back 
that was almost as good,   except that the junk wasn't quite as interesting.  
I remember a "duct" with a fan on one end,  made up of six segments of 
aluminum extrusion,  each of which was filled with TO-36 cased ("doorknob") 
transistors.  Probably germanium,  though.  And barrels full of keyboards 
that came from punch card machines.  I ended up taking home a board that had 
something like 400 TTL chips on it for only a couple of bucks.  This being 
15-20 years ago,  I don't think they're likely still there either.  Though I 
also made a stop at Herbach & Rademan that day,  and they're still around.

Maybe if I'm lucky I'll stumble across places like this again,  and collect 
some more interesting junk.  Though the west coast sure does seem to have the 
edge for this kind of thing.