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Electronics Surplus Shop 'WeirdStuff Warehouse' Is Closing (fastcompany.com)
Fast Company's harrymcc writes: When technological goods are no longer of use to anyone in Silicon Valley, they end up in the WeirdStuff Warehouse -- where, it turns out, there often is someone willing to pay for them. Sadly, the 32-year-old Sunnyvale store is closing forever on Sunday. I paid a final visit and, as usual, felt like I could rummage through this vast storehouse of obsolete gadgets and software forever. WeirdStuff first made an appearance on Slashdot in 2003 when editor chrisd asked Slashdotters about their favorite surplus stores. Also mentioned was Skycraft.
What are you talking about? They sold recycled junk. That place was cool as a museum, but not much.
Also, if you want junk, Halted is still around. And there are a few other places like that in the Bay Area.
I used to pay them a visit when I was in the Bay for work, I had my hobby-related itinerary that touched WeirdStuff, Halted, HRO, and a few more places. They sold mostly junk, the few things worth of reuse were way too overpriced, given their obsolete and used conditions. I think I never bought anything there.
In the 1990's they had a larger store across from the Sunnyvale Fry's of that time. The expected computer gear was mixed in seldom seen industrial devices. I remember walking in and finding an electron microscope for sale. I bought a logic analyser there that must have been a dozen years old when I bought it yet was still capable for contemporary designs. I shudder to think what it must have cost when new.
The more recent location is remote from everything. It isn't a place you can drop in and look around because you happened to be next door. Once there, it is just computer gear, very little of which is interesting.
Sorry mate, I won't travel internationally to keep them floating.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Or perhaps you could arrange to go to one of the various warehouses that are/were conduits for discarded electronics being sent to China for recycling? Since the Chinese enforced their ban on the import of "foreign garbage", the stuff is supposedly just piling up there and they might be prepared to let you take some of it off their hands for a small handling fee, or even for free. For more useful stuff though, e.g. contemporary equipment that is still likely to be in working order, I've also had good luck with auctions of office surplus and assets recovered from companies that have gone bust and are being liquidated. I got a really nice iSCSI SAN chassis, plus some switches and servers - all almost new - for less than $500, all told that way a few years back that are still doing all the heavy lifting on my home LAN.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The big difference is not people shopping online, but the change in technology. Computers used to have hackable buses, parallel ports that were basically just pins on a TTL chip, and serial ports that were easy to bit-bang. You could go to Weirdstuff and buy some weird stuff that you could actually rig up to your Linux or DOS box and get working.
Today, I am afraid to even open the case on my Macbook. I need a microscope to see the traces on the PCB. Everything is BGA.
I still have my oscilloscope and a reflow oven, but haven't used them in a while. I am trying to get my kids interested in breadboarding some circuits for a Raspberry Pi, but it is hard to pry them away from their phones. It is a lot easier to get them interested in coding, because they can still see the point in that. But home hardware hacking is dying.
One thing is missing here - why it is closing? The answer is - because Google has acquired large real estate area in Sunnyvale and asked WeirdStuff leave their premises in just one week. Essentially Google is killing the very nature of Silicon Valley - the environment where engineers and their kids created their unique creatures.Halted (HSC) is in similar position - they had to leave their building and they are looking for a buyer.
Say hello to the newSilicon Valley - full of advertising scum and social network companies.
I looked at the company Outback that bought all of the inventory, their prices are crazy high for old, end of life equipment. Thanks, but I will stick with my local government auctions. I've been able to buy medical xray machines and metal detectors for 20 dollars. Radio trunking system from the police department, 300 dollars.
Sunnyvale sucks, it's a Mexican barrio.
Sunnyvale is too expensive for many Latinos. It is mostly Asian (41%) and white (35%).
Sunnyvale demographics
Online is part of it, but retail really needs to do better at providing a compelling reason to actually visit them.
Shops around here often don't have what I want. When I do find something it often feels like I bought what they had, not what I really wanted. I get ripped off on parking fees, there are never enough chargers and the spaces are too small. Most towns are just clones of each other too, with no character or anything to hold much interest.
Compare to online. Delivery is mostly offset by savings on parking and fuel anyway, the range is better and you can research stuff much more easily to find out if it is a POS before you buy. There are down sides, but shops make the rest of the experience so poor that they aren't enough to tempt people into the store or to pay a little more.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Computers used to have hackable buses, parallel ports that were basically just pins on a TTL chip, and serial ports that were easy to bit-bang.
This niche has since been reborn and taken back into our hands, thanks to Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and all the numerous other that came after and all feature GPIO.
Today, I am afraid to even open the case on my Macbook. I need a microscope to see the traces on the PCB. Everything is BGA.
But luckily, that iShiny still has USB ports and Ethernet/Wifi, so you can still communicate and control the modern devices that still allow the same level of fun.
(Now with even less risk to blow up your expensive laptop, and only blow up instead a cheap credit-card sized computer or micro-controller)
But home hardware hacking is dying.
Until they reach the point where they want to do some cool hardware stuff (robotics, home automation): think arduino controlling valves to make a water show in the garden.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
sells is actually fabrication/test equipment grade stuff.
Old yes, but depending on the packages you need, maybe still usable.
They carry everything from mask alignment equipment, to microscopes for part inspections to wire bond tools for bare dies and injection molding chip packages. Hell they even have sputtering plasma machines for generating tape or disk platters!
The biggest problem with most of these places is they can't actually refurbish most of the gear they get in. They have a niche market who might want to buy this kind of equipment, but most importantly: Between environmental regulations and the overall limited salary opportunities both for silicon valley members and the broader california public, even people who could make use of this equipment aren't located where it would be financially feasible to purchase and utilize it ATM.
Get some of this shit shipped to africa, south america, etc however and you might be able to produce some limited production runs of equipment or magnetic media that many people would be interested in buy, potentially to the tune of millions a year, but not more. In the US that scale of production would not be enough given the manpower, salary, and environmental costs. But elsewhere it might be.
Sadly between that and the nonlinear increase in electronics performance in the past 20-25 years, most of the used euqipment for a generation or more isn't easily resalable unlike in the past, and given the cost to obtain it, refurbish it, resell it, and operate it, it is unlikely companies can continue to remain afloat selling it.
If you are a photography/optics/astronomy nerd, the Surplus Shed in Fleetwood PA is an excellent resource, consisting of all kinds of interesting and bizarre consumer, educational, industrial, and military gear and parts, including the remaindered stock of Jaegers and Wollensak. Most of their business is online, but if you can get in the half day a week they are open, their warehouse (a converted 4 room schoolhouse) is a paradise of optical treasures mixed with a fever nightmare of hoarding and cat fancy.
American Science & Surplus in Milwaukee, WI (www.sciplus.com) has a ton of oddball stuff I've never seen anywhere else. Some electronics, but chemistry supplies and educational stuff too.
Its amazing that I am seeing Skycraft mentioned here. That little store in Winter Park, Fl has been my go-to place for all sorts of projects since I was a little kid. It is a great place for every type of surplus you can imagine. I know you can order most everything online nowadays but when you needed that DPDT locking rocker switch at 4PM on a Saturday, you had a place to get it. And Cheap too. The only issue is that it is not open on Sundays.
"A 'person' is smart. 'People' are dumb, panicky animals and you know that."
If everybody was cool and there were no losers...
If you're in Santa Fe, there is (or was) a pretty cool place in Los Alamos with more obscure shit than you've ever seen for sale, including lots of obscure lab equipment...
A solid knowledge of analog should br a prereq for digital...
... electronic and fluid logic, that is to say.
The black hole its closed closed down a few years ago. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/09/17/161271167/a-los-alamos-landmark-the-black-hole-is-about-to-disappear
Cell phones have taken over so much tech. Plus with modern logistics and analytics there's a lot less surplus. Companies know much sooner when a product's a dud. Sometimes before it hits market.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Halted moved a few blocks away, but is still in business.
That said, the owners of HSC (Halted) "have made the difficult decision to offer the company for sale.", so if you want to experience HSC, you should probably make your pilgrimage pretty damn soon.
Ever since NYC's "Radio Row" on Cortland and Canal streets was cleared out to put up the World Trade Center. And smaller shops used to be found in most areas, but nearly all have closed down due to declining sales and increasing rent.
Ham Radio became more of an "appliance operator" hobby than an exercise in building your own gear or modifying military surplus. Hobbyist electronics in general has become more about downloading "sketches" and plugging pre-made "shields" into an Arduino than actually hacking hardware.
Ebay started to absorb the better stuff that used to show up at hamfests and flea markets, leaving the dwindling number of them full of 386-era PC junk and Chinese electronic toys for twice the price you could find them for on Alibaba.
About the only old-fashioned surplus store left in the greater NYC area is P+T Surplus in Kingston, NY. They seem to be scraping by selling mostly metals and materials to artists and the like. For years , they got most of the surplus from the various IBM operations in the area, from office furniture to test gear and semiconductor fab equipment.
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This.
Boeing surplus (when it had a retail store) sequestered most of the 'good stuff' in the back for 'institutional' auctions. Same thing with the University of Washington surplus. I think eBay killed the retail surplus shops. Not with lower prices and a wider selection so much as the people reselling surplus as a business whined about retail customers undercutting them by buying stuff for their own use.
I go to a couple of live estate auctions when there's something good. They are loaded with eBay resellers. And if you show up and they figure out that you are buying for your own use they treat you like a leper.
Have gnu, will travel.
Went Saturday to pay my final respects. Picked up 3 old fluke DMM's last calibrated in the 1990's and 2 1ft USB cables for just under $23. My buddy picked up a HP 35 in perfect cosmetic condition, with the case. Waiting on a battery to test it.
I remember my first walk about in the late 80's. They seemed to concentrate on old office cubicle furniture back then. One of the owners, made his own wine. Got to taste it. It was really bad.
It was always the place to go to either buy some older hardware you needed, or to walk around with a buddy a reminisce as you saw hardware you used at some point in a previous life.
So, computer literacy gone for years. We lost the local HRO and Digital GURU in the last year. Both due do soaring rents. HRO, it was going to be a 60% hike. Just over a year later, the HRO sign is still there over the door to the empty store.
So you guys know, Bob is looking to retire. So unless someone makes an offer to buy it, HSC is next.
Part of the issue is the number of hardware manufacturing and R&D companies has dropped to nothing. So possible new inventory is disappearing. Some of the inventory at weird stuff and HSC has been on the shelf for over 10 years. Techshop, a short 10 year existence, great concept, wrong execution. Action electronics also gone.
Anchor Electronics on walsh is still around.
Much of today's electronics won't last long enough to be resold. Bang Good, either goes bang or might be good.
Talking about old electronics and junk, Electronic Flea Market will be at Fry's Sunnyvale Saturday April 14, not at De Anza.
You're comparing Europe to North America again. Around nearly every "surplus" store here, parking is free. If it's not, it's usually $1-2/2-5hr parking because they also own the lot. On top of that, surplus stores have shifted and cater to larger groups of people. One of the ones nearly me is called "London City Surplus" you can find pretty much everything there, from used military goods to stuff that's been dumped by 3M and EDM(Electro-Motive Diesel) which builds 'slugs' and train engines. Both with the ability to be 'hot dropped' into areas for electrical power without requiring an inverter. On of the other surplus stores in Kitchener/Waterloo has more stuff from Blackberry for instance, and used stuff from the tri-univerisities(Waterloo, Wilfred-laurier, Conestoga) in the area.
The problem in this case is that the above mentioned store is being pushed out. And that 'hobbyists' aren't going in as they used to, this likely has more to do with people who work for SV companies no longer being able to afford to live there and commuting in.
Om, nomnomnom...
Here in Bellingham, we have the Re Store. Not much in electronics, but great for old tools and building materials. I use them for the glass for my glass engraving hobby.
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
Many of you know of these places. I've been seeing it and saying it for years now: electronics, as the hobby it once was, is dying out. If you'd never been to Mike Quinn Electronics, back in the day, you missed out: quonset hut after quonset hut full of surplus electronics, and interesting tech in general. Even places as pedestrian as Radio Shack don't exist anymore. :-(
Some have forgotten Sikicon Valley's major role as a design and manufacturing center for the military industrial complex. radar guided missiles and many classified projects still too secret to be mentioned and some like the Glomr explorer and stealth war ships like Spirit come to mind. From the surplus missile equipment I scored gems like complex 4-way bulb lit buttons labeled Target gated that someday I will repurpose into a desk gadget. the old ejection seat bailout bottle will always be my go-to portable compressed air storage resource. The Valley lost its heart when manufacturing and hardware gave way to ephemeral bytes.
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
Shenzhen IO
http://store.steampowered.com/...
All of Zachtronics' games are programming based but this sounds closest to what you want.
horror vacui
Hobbyist electronics in general has become more about downloading "sketches" and plugging pre-made "shields" into an Arduino than actually hacking hardware.
Arduinos are bloody awesome for hacking, with or without shields. I own a license for IAR embedded (costs about $2000) and yet I still reach for the Arduino with it's little sketches for all the odd jobs. Yes, I know how to load C++ on directly. Yes I have done that, but I still use tha arduino as intended most often.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Last time I checked, I could not even get a full schematic for the Raspberry Pi.
Here you are
The product does not seem friendly to hardware hacking at all.
The most interesting thing with Pi and Arduino is not *hacking the devices themselves* (the boards are pretty much boring, its almost pin headers directly wired to the CPU / to the microcontroller, resp).
The most interesting thing with SBCs and microcontroller board is that you got the *pin headers exposing gpio* themselves.
Fully programmable in the case of microcontrollers.
re-assignable to tons of common protocols or crudely bit-bangable in the case of sbcs.
Meaning that you can hack tons of hardware *with* them.
Nearly anything that you used to be able to hack using the parallel port of an old pc-compatible : you can do the same (and much more) with the above.
From simple things like controlling leds, to complex stuff like interfacing proprietary protocols of some weird hardware.
Or connecting a vintage console's controller.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
https://www.smithandedwards.co...
http://surplussales.com/
https://www.allelectronics.com...
My visits to Weird Stuff Warehouse & HSC were among the most fun parts of my trips to Silicon Valley. South Florida has been a diy electronics outback forever, and I totally envied people who lived in "the valley" & could LITERALLY go out & casually buy a logic analyzer or oscilloscope on a random Sunday afternoon.
I remember *almost* buying a Silicon Graphics workstation there, just because it was cheap & was the one computer even AMIGA owners reverently mentioned in hushed tones back in the late 80s. From what I recall, I didn't because phone-internet didn't *quite* work well yet (~2007), and I just couldn't do enough on-the-spot research to convince myself I'd be able to get it to actually *work* once I got home. Sigh.
The closest... but not even close; I'm envisioning an nvironment (likely 3D) where one has to build (like in Minecraft) simple logical circuits - starting with hydraulics and working on to pneumatics, perhaps - to defeat your enemy, harvest resources, etc. Think weapons, boobytraps, etc...
It's too bad so few programmers study fluid logic or industrial automation; such a game would likely already exist.
One caveat re: using Arduino/Pi + low-cost digital servos to build a diy animated water fountain: low-cost servos just can't take the sustained abuse of being run for even a few hours per day... they'll work for a few days or weeks... maybe 6-18 months if you only run them occasionally for a few minutes at a time... then die.
Yup. The point of using cheap electronics isn't to make a professional-grade device, but to have a small fun project.
(And eventually if you like the design you might end up migrating and upgrading to better components over time. While at the same time perfecting the design)
At best, you can make your outdoor electronics cheap & easy to replace, then say 'fuck it' and LET the dew & corrosion ruin it every few months.
The whole concept behind component that cost in the single-digit range (think Rasberry Zero) :
you play with it and don't mind it it gets destroyed in the process.
Often you read a blog article by some Maker about a fun project. Half-way through, he or she makes a mistake, burn the SBC, and just got "meh" and fork another 5-9$ to get a new one and continue the project.
"Every few months" : ...or instead, once the thing burns 3 months down the line, you can take the opportunity to upgrade it/redesign it. Or move to a new fun project altogether.
BTW: thanks for sharing your experience. Fun fact : a colleague at a former work place decided to exactly do that, but decided to go down the rabbit hole (as you say) and go for high grade components. High European salary combined with access to cheap online direct sellers makes it a tiny bit easier.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I think part of the problem is that when I say "analog logic" - whether I'm referring to hydraulic, pneumatic, electric or mechanical - techie-types tend to visualize 2D images of circuits (i.e. schematics) rather than the actual three-dimensional machines they could potentially represent...
I wish someone would come up with an addictive game that teaches the players how to design logical circuits (particularly electronic fluid logic).
A solid knowledge of analog should br a prereq for digital...
The closest I ever saw was Rocky's Boots. The author's name might remind you of something.
I love P+T surplus
They had a recent near-death experience but are back in business.