Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MillCreek on November 08, 2020, 04:04:30 PM
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I bought an EVGA 1660 TI SC Ultra graphics card to see if I can get MS Flight Simulator 2020 off its knees. It arrived this morning from Amazon and I come to find out the new card needs the 8 pin connector and my power supply has 6 pin connectors. No adapter packed in the card box. I called around and the closest store that might have it on the shelf is Fry's electronics, a 110 mile round trip. No joy at the local Best Buy. So another $ 7.49 order from Amazon with tomorrow delivery.
I remember it was not all that long ago that I could find a couple of Radio Shacks and a Comp USA within 20 miles. No more. I guess if you need parts or cables, online is the way to go.
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Check with newegg.com but shipping with probably still get you
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For all the fun everybody had in knocking Radio Shack, they were darned handy for a bunch of stuff. I still have the last printed catalog of theirs around somewhere. They kept moving away from their roots, from catering to the electronic hobbyist, to almost pure entertainment electronics.
Towards the end they made some puny efforts to get back to the component-level market but too little too late. Last "component" I bought from them was an LM-34 precision temperature IC.
I was surprised in doing a search, that there are 80 outlets operating in COmmierado. There's one in Arvada, not far from me still operating, but I haven't been in there in years.
Of course all of the "component level" retail stores have closed up... Fistells, Quest, Gateway, Lafayette... since almost everything one might want to do is available on line in pre-manufactured ICs nowadays.
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I have to agree on the Radio Shack. Overpriced maybe, but if you needed something, they usually had it and were always 15min or so away. Same with Frys, though they were more like 45 minutes from me in CA, but it was an easy trip to bundle with something else.
Used to be you could pretty easily pick up the stuff in the OP at the local mom & pop (or geek & nerd) computer store when they were more like a local gun store. Don't know that many of those small stores exist anymore.
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My son is building a new desktop for himself right now as a gaming machine and to run his 3D printer. He told me that all the components are coming from online orders at Newegg, Best Buy and Amazon. He said there are very few small computer stores anymore here in Seattle, and they primarily do repair with some complete system sales on the side. Selling components, not so much.
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About the best bet you have is if you have a micro center nearby. Otherwise yep, it's online.
Keep in mind also though that Flight Sim is much more CPU bound than it is GPU bound.
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Digi-Key, Fry's, Vetco
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About the best bet you have is if you have a micro center nearby. Otherwise yep, it's online.
They are about the only ones left that has stuff like the OP is looking for.
They actually have some electronic component stuff too, which is very occasionally handy. I've taken to just buying large assortments of components directly from china. I can keep good inventory, and its very inexpensive.
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Digi-Key, Fry's, Vetco
Fry's is circling the drain. Went a few years ago and they had nothing but crap. I wouldn't be surprised to see them go out of business soon.
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Google tells me the nearest Micro Center is 1350 miles away in Denver.
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Another very good electronics resource is Mouser.
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My son is building a new desktop for himself right now as a gaming machine and to run his 3D printer. He told me that all the components are coming from online orders at Newegg, Best Buy and Amazon. He said there are very few small computer stores anymore here in Seattle, and they primarily do repair with some complete system sales on the side. Selling components, not so much.
There used to be a string of Korean PC parts shops in Federal Way off Pacific Hwy area that were all the rave with us college kids in the 90's. Mix and match mobos, CPUs, GPUs and so on, take it home and slam it together.
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Infotech Systems, in Federal Way, that seems to ring a memory bell and they're still there according to Google Maps.
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Another very good electronics resource is Mouser.
And Newark.
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Still have a RadioShack in the next town. A franchise of some sort. Not shadow of what they used to be but still some individual components and odds and ends. Not sure how they do enough business to stay open but they're still around.
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Fry's corporate has says they are switching over to a consignment model for selling their goods. That said, I really think they are about done. I used to stop in at the one in Tualatin, OR whenever I was in town visiting family. The last two times I've been in there they have had almost nothing on the shelves.
Reports on the interwebs say that the rest of the stores are the same way. They apparently sold their flagship location in Sunnyvale, CA some time ago.
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I managed a couple of RS stored back in the late 80's, back when they were in the the hard turn from component and electronic suppliers to "Technology Stores". Unfortunately, a Tandy senior executive team firmly stuck in 50's business practices had already sounded the death knell. Their plodding pace couldn't keep up with advent of automation and single-year product cycles, leaving them perpetually behind. Trying to sell a re-branded two year old model at a premium when newer, bigger stores had this year's model for less is not a winning strategy, m'kay? It took them ten years too long to recognize their mistake. Their moderate attempts at a reboot were too little, too late.
They also made drastic changes to their store manager compensation models in the 1991-92 years, changes which cost the company fully half their veteran managers. Introduced under the guise of "Hey, look how much more money you can make!", in practice the plan saw most managers lose a significant chunk of income. Mine went down almost a third. That's when I bailed. Actually the final straw was when corporate wrote me up for not meeting TSP quotas (extended warranties) even though I had just received national commendations for double-digit growth and extraordinary profit margins in a district where every other store was seeing sales declines. During the exit interview, the HR rep asked me why I was leaving. I asked her to look at the last two entries in my personnel folder, and to compare this year's salary to last year's. She went flip-flip-flip, read for a second, and said, "Oh...".
Brad
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Back in the late '70s after my time in the service and when I was in school, I was a part time salesman at three different Radio Shacks in the Portland area. I did so well one of my managers took me with him when he moved to a different store.
Even though I was part time, I was one of their top sales people in the region. The DM offered me stores on three different occasions. I knew enough then about their corporate practices that I did not want to manage a store. My goal then was to get into broadcast engineering, which I did after graduation.
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I always enjoyed going into Radio Shack's with my dad and grandpa and digging through the little drawers for the right components. I took my oldest daughter into a local one to pick up a battery holder for a project before they closed.