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Electronics Surplus Shop 'WeirdStuff Warehouse' Is Closing (fastcompany.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the one-door-closes-another-opens dept.

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.

6 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Re:You fucked yourselves by alexru · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also, if you want junk, Halted is still around. And there are a few other places like that in the Bay Area.

  2. Not as interesting as it once was by erice · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Not as interesting as it once was by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Surplus places come and go, and obviously eBay has taken a lot of business. I'll miss Weird Stuff, where I actually bought evidence for Google's defense in Oracle v. Google - copies of Sun software that cloned other companies APIs. HSC will probably close if nobody wants to buy it. And that is close to the end for Silicon Valley surplus.

      I enjoyed a visit to Skycraft when I was in Florida for Hamcation and the Falcon 9 Heavy launch. Mendolson's in Dayton is also worth seeing, make time for that and the Air Force Museum if you go to Hamvention.

      But the one I'll never forget was a little hole in the wall on Long Island called Community Electronics. Went there on the bus from Lido Beach before I had a driver's license. There was always a story that Tom, the proprietor, actually supported the company from some entirely different business activity that you weren't supposed to ask about. We also had Barry electronics and Edlie.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
  3. Re:You fucked yourselves by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. Silicon Valley is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Silicon Valley is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The letter

      However, having to vacate their premises wouldn't mean the company closing down if it wasn't already in trouble. Leases don't get invalidated with change of ownership, so if they're vacating before the end of the lease, it's because Google offered them money to move out early. Otherwise they could stay until the end of the lease and look for new premises. Clearly they took the opportunity to shut down with some extra cash in pocket, and they don't think it's worth trying to keep the company going.