[sdiy] Maplin folds

[Guy Taylor]

thats a shame :(
I lived in England when I was a kid, and I remember getting the
near-phone-book-sized maplin catalogs.
They are what got me so into electronics and why I am building synth stuff
today!!


On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 10:37 AM, Nicholas Keller <nirokeforums at gmail.com>
wrote:

> RadioShack was the same here.  Way overpriced...I would only buy there
> when I needed a part that same day as the only other small-quantity retail
> shop in the area (Chester's) closed their doors a few years ago.
>
> There used to be a dozen RadioShacks within a  ten mile radius from my
> house, but last I checked, the closest was 80 miles away.  That's likely
> closed now as well.
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 6:15 PM Richie Burnett <
> rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Another one here shocked to see Maplin go.  Last time I was in the local
>> store they had loads of Arduino and Raspberry Pi stuff in there, along
>> with
>> table-top robots, quad-copters, and all the usual disco lights, speakers,
>> amps, etc.  I was amazed to see that they still had a tiny little
>> "Components" counter at the back of the store, but my jaw nearly hit the
>> floor when I saw the prices for basic resistors, capacitors, LEDs,
>> etc!!!  I
>> think they wanted to charge me something like 5 quid for a plastic IDC
>> tool
>> (for fixing some telephone extension wiring,) that was clearly a 2 pence
>> moulded plastic piece of Chinese crap.
>>
>> -Richie,
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jay Vaughan
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 8:07 PM
>> To: SDIY List
>> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Maplin folds
>>
>> > In fairness to them, they tried to cater for a changing market, people
>> no
>> > longer build things these days, they are content with buying something.
>> > Buying things has also gotten a lot cheaper so again, no real surprises,
>> > but a shame none the less.
>> > Paula
>>
>> It always bugs me that these part-shacks go out of business, but yet the
>> Maker scene is expanding in leaps and bounds.  It seems to me that its
>> just
>> a matter of not having the right/savvy generation in charge of new product
>> and market development in these dinosaurs.
>>
>> Like, if Radioshack had just tuned into the 3D printer/hackaday/rPi thing
>> a
>> little sooner, it'd have had a pivot point to segue into the Maker scene,
>> which - from my perspective - seems to be positively thriving: The kids
>> are
>> making stuff!  Perhaps the writing was on the wall already, what with all
>> their over-leveraging on cheap crap from China and corporate finance
>> dodginess, but .. maybe there's gonna be a brick-and-mortar retailer rise
>> from all of this that caters to the demands of the maker scene.
>>
>> Radio Shack used to be *the* doors-open hackerspace in many communities.
>> I
>> know I learned a shit-ton of things in my youth by camping out in the
>> local
>> RS, booting up the demo TRS-80's, and coding away (same with
>> Computerworld,
>> anyone remember them?)  If they'd had a more community-/DIY/maker oriented
>> open door policy, and actually .. I dunno .. hosted a few events on a
>> regular basis, perhaps they'd have become a more viable force for the
>> scene?
>> One can dream ..
>>
>>
>> ;
>> --
>> Jay Vaughan
>> ibisum at gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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