[sdiy] Maplin folds

[charlie wallace]

you all must have gone to a different maplins than i did as a yoof, i
used to make the trek into the manchester one in the early 90s and it
was often a shamble, the catalogue offered a lot more than the in
store did, lack of stock, strange parts, high priced  etc. even
tandy/radio shack was like this. you lucked out if you were close to
one that had the manager who cared and was into the electronics side
of things and would keep stock, otherwise it was those giant pack of
resistors and a bunch of connectors.  i did look forward to going ,
since it was better than nothing, but now i can get stuff from amazon
in less than hour.

i did like the little green wire wrap pen they had though, those were
great for repair work

maybe rose tinted nostalgia or good/bad luck.

the RS components catalogue was the holy grail for us, my uncle used
to pass it along to me after the nuclear plant he worked at was done
with it, and we'd talk about it late into the night and how they were
for business only accounts etc and who did we know who could buy us
stuff

On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 5:20 PM, Guy Taylor <geekon at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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>>
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