History of bulk electronic components suppliers

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Hi,
purely out of curiosity, is there anyone who can tell me what happened
to popular electronics mail-order companies of the 1970s like Poly Paks
in the US and BiPak & BiPrePak in the UK? There must have been a trend
that killed them off, and caused other medium sized names to shrink
while a few grew very large? Is there a book on this element of history??

Mark A

 

I always assumed it was due to a decline in hobby interests, electronics
especially.

Graham

 

It's easy to see a trend after the fact, but a reality is that even long
standing businesses can go under. There have been some long existing chains
here in Canada that went out of business in the past decade or so, and the
immediate reaction is "but they've been there forever, how can it be...".
The fact that the businesses had been around for a long time does not
mean they are impervious to all the problems businesses have, it just
makes it a lot more noticeable.

Poly-Paks just sort of faded out. Unlike a lot of things, I can't recall
any exact time when it disappeared. I suspect their prime had peaked before
they actually closed down.

A lot of their stuff was surplus. They started out in the early sixties,
at a time when semiconductors were still relatively new, and so they
were supplying things that the old-line stores weren't, and maybe doing
it at a better price than a lot of places that did sell the parts (because
they were selling surplus). But later, other outlets had come along to
sell to hobbyists, either old-style stores adapting or new places starting
up, and they were generally better than Poly-Paks. They had a wider range,
their prices were good, and they weren't selling things of dubious origins.
Say post-1975, there were other places to buy that sort of thing, but the
other places had everything you'd need. Poly-Paks hadn't changed much,
including their ads, and while you could get an 8080 from them by
that point (though I can't remember if they had a better price on them
or not), they didn't have all the peripheral ICs or even TTL to put
together a computer. ANd as digital logic took over in a lot of things,
the projects got more complicated. So while being able to get a transistor
in the early sixties might have been neat, or get a PLL IC in the early
seventies because you wanted to play around with them for their own sake,
as the projects got more complicated the "neat IC" was a lesser part of
it all, and my recollection is that Poly-Paks couldn't supply it all.

Their closing down might have been a result of this, or it might have
been a result of overbuying something and getting stuck with too much
stock and not enough cash, like any business has to be concerned with.
Or maybe an owner died, and nobody wanted to take over. I don't know,
but there are lots of factors that could have been the issue that
had nothing to do with a "trend".

Michael

 

If you think electronic hobbyists are having trouble getting basic stuff
consider hobby chemists. With the incredibly stupid war on drugs and the
war's even more stupid means of enforcement it is virtually impossible to
buy simple chemicals such as acids. In some states, possessing chemical
glassware is becoming a felony. Laboratory supply houses like VWR are no
longer accessible. UPS is imposing incredibly high hazardous material
shipping charges. Suppliers, if you can find them, are loathe to sell small
quantities to jerks who might sue them later.

If electronics still used vacuum tubes instead of semiconductors that
operate at much lower voltage, selling electronic stuff would open the
vendors to too much liability.

Bill

 

All part of the ongoing war on intelligence and knowledge? It looks like it
is the only one the US is winning!

 

I can buy gallons of hydrochloric and sulfuric acids at most any
hardware store or Home Depot. Ditto all sorts of organics. Some
specific Meth precursors are getting hard to buy, which is good...
meth does a lot of harm.

There are lots of mail-order lab-ware suppliers around. What states
are you referring to? Have they shut down all their school chem labs,
university chemistry departments, pharmacies, and pathology labs?

Tube-type (20 KV color) TV's are still on sale, as are plasma
displays, hv backlit LCDs, ionizers, copy machines, neon signs, bug
zappers, microwave ovens. And there are plenty of HV fets, diodes,
transformers, and power supplies in the Mouser catalog. All that
whining is uninformed nonsense.

How many scientific Nobel prizes has Canada scored lately? I can't
remember seeing a Canadian electronic or scientific instrument that
looks worth buying. There certainly must be some, but there's no
obvious glaring intellectual advantage that Canada's advanced social
policies have created. You may dislike Americans, but to claim the US
is short on intelligence and knowledge is, well, stupid.

John

 

The UK is far more locked down than the US. While I could buy a small
amount of H2SO4 with a motorcycle baterry, it is the ONLY way I can do it,
a few tens of millilitres at a time with a waste of hard-to-recycle plastic
and lead as waste.

Fortunately, a bit of invention (and good advice) got me the isopropanol
and acetone I need for optics assembly cleaning. I gave up on the idea of
home anodising because the few places that would sell what I needed are
only allowed to sell complete kits here (at exorbitant prices). It's so
ruthless that even these will go out of business very soon, once people
realise they can never privately buy the acid needed to re-stock their
original investment.

There are one or two chemical shops online in the UK, but they offer stuff
almost exclusively useful to those who want to make explosives! I
researched their names (and associated names found in conjunction) and
found more than one forum of amatuer chemists occasionally discussing them.
The general consensus is that such sites are fronts designed to hook the
stupid would-be bomber. Their owners certainly never answered any question
of mine, which they would if they'd had any real intention and ability to
sell the stuff.

We do live in increasingly paranoid times. I'm not sure how, or even IF,
thius can explain the lack of hobby electronics sales. Maybe it can. A lot
of the public is becoming increasingly frightened of science in general.

 

hmmmm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Arm


martin

 

Could it be that instead military funding is also part research funding?



Thomas

 

A boom with some servo motors? I wouldn't buy one.

John

 

There's still lots of chemicals available over the counter under the
guise of industrial, common or trade names, you just have to hunt them
down. There's some websites that help.

Given the vast number of drug labs that they bust (and I guess that
might be the tip of the iceberg) restrictions on the procurement of
chemicals is an abject failure.

I understood posssion *without lawful excuse* was the offence. A home
chemical lab for experimenting surely is lawful Surely it's the same
as building a simple 555 timer, it could be used for experimenting,
hacking, learning, messing about, or; as a bomb timer. Does that mean
that possession of 555's is a felony?

Barry

 

Good point, I dont need one either.

They must have done something....


martin

 

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 11:29:27 +1300, in sci.electronics.design Barry

Ask Boston ;-)


martin

 

To assess public opinion on creationism, Gallup asked:

Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin
and development of human beings?
1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced
forms of life, but God guided this process,
2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced
forms of life, but God had no part in this process,
3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time
within the last 10,000 years or so?

Polled in November 2004, 38% of respondents chose (1), 13% chose (2), 45%
chose (3), and 4% offered a different or no opinion. These results are also
similar to those from previous Gallup polls, which extend back to 1982.

83% think it was a god? The war on intelligence and knowledge has been won!

But
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sixth-Grader Gets Perfect SAT Math Score

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/8148855/detail.html

TaeHun Kim Takes Geometry Class At Campus Middle School

DENVER -- A sixth-grader at Campus Middle School is getting big kudos for
getting a perfect score on the math portion of his SATs.

TaeHun Kim scored an 800 on the math portion of the SAT, which he took in
January at Cherry Creek High School.

"Few high school students achieve a perfect SAT score, but Tae's
accomplishing that feat as a sixth-grader is rare indeed. Testing is not
completed for 2005-2006; however, last year, no sixth or seventh grade
student in the seven western states served by the Rocky Mountain Talent
Search scored 800. An average score for the talented sixth-graders eligible
to take the SAT was 452," said Cherry Creek Schools spokeswoman Tustin
Amole. "Last year, Tae took the PLUS test and achieved the highest math,
verbal, and composite scores in the region."

Kim is currently in an eighth grade honors geometry class at Campus Middle
School.

"Tae amazes me with his incredible mathematical mind. He typically sees
several ways to solve problems. I'm sure we will continue to see great
things from him in the years to come," said Kim's geometry teacher Tim
Peterson.

Kim is also a member of the school's Mathcounts team, but his interests
extend beyond math, school officials said.

"He enjoys video games, origami, chess, and Anime and reads with the same
passion he brings to his math studies," Amole said.

TheDenverChannel.com

 

Why do you have such contempt for ordinary people and their beliefs?
Are Canadians much different? Do you have similar contempt for
Buddhists and Intuits and everybody else with spiritual beliefs?

I don't believe much of that stuff, but I sure don't feel superior,
much less mocking, to those that do. Actually, I rather envy them
having something bigger than themselves that they can believe in.

Well, what do you believe in? Cartoon animation?

I got an 800 on my math SAT (but only 720 on the verbal) but that was
before they dumbed it down. Taking multiple-choice tests like this is
a peculiar talent.

John

 

Since 1990..

Bertram N. Brockhouse, Physics, 1994
Rudolph Marcus*, Chemistry, 1992
Michael Smith, United Kingdom, Chemistry, 1993
Richard E. Taylor, Physics, 1990


Graham

 

What the hell is wrong with YOU? Why are you so threatened by even the
slightest criticism, but feel perfectly OK criticizing every other country
on earth, not to mention bombing the shit out of many at various times?
That's the sign of a very immature people. What next? You'll copy the
Germans and declare you are the master race?

For a nation who noisily flaunts your principles in everyone else's face you
sure don't like to stand up for them.

Why is being delusional better than being rational? You may believe your
asshole is the centre of the universe but don't expect me to worship it - or
give it a tax deduction. I'd rather give a tax deduction to doughnut shops -
they serve a useful purpose.

I've seen animated cartoons. They exist.

 

For the record, I have never criticized every other country on earth
(actually, very few of them, although I hear Tierra del Fuego is
unpleasant most of the time) and I have never blown up anything bigger
than an M80.

You can't accuse 300 million people, who elect a new government every
few years, of sustained hypocracy. Well, actually, you do.

John

 

Of course, what you should have said is "I don't care about the original
topic of this thread, I'll reply to make some commentary, and cross-post
it to sci.electronics.design in addition to the original
sci.electronics.components because I'm more interested in this off-topic
stuff than in commenting in the original newsgroup about the original
post".

Sometims not saying anything is more effective than trying to chime into
every thread.

Michael

 

Half, shared with someone from another country.

Now a US citizen, at Caltech.

UK? Half, again shared with a non-Canadian.

1/3, shared ditto; affiliated with Stanford University.

I don't mean to bash Canada, a nice place with very nice people, but
when a Canadian claims that the US is "part of the ongoing war on
intelligence and knowledge" I get a little skeptical. This is the same
guy who bashes Americans for being fat but won't say how much he
weighs.

Guess which country all those Nobels were shared with?

John