The best electronic surplus stores in the Bay?

[camp .]

    I know things aren't the way they were (cue the theme song). If I'm not mistaken most folks buy parts through Amazon and surplus stuff, perhaps eBay. Regardless, I've been asked by someone "the best electronic surplus stores in the Bay?" I of course, am not in the Bay but told him I would query the group.

I did a quick Google search which yielded this:

1. Anchor Electronics. 4.9 (76 reviews) ...
2. Alltronics. 4.7 (3 reviews) ...
3. TDR Electronic Recycling. 4.3 (25 reviews) ...
4. Mountain View Surplus. 3.5 (125 reviews) ...
5. Electronics Flea Market. ...
6. Central Computers. ...
7. Stevens Creek Surplus Department Store. ...
8. Fremont Surplus Computer.

But looking for actual feedback...

Thanks,

Camp

[Ralph Hipps]

Plus 1 (or 2 or 3) for anchor electronics! Love the place. Small but lots of good stuff!

[Gmail]

So the “Weird Stuff Warehouse” is gone?

Thomas

-  

Need something prototyped, built or coded? I’ve been building prototypes for companies for 15 years. I am now incorporating generative AI into products.

-

Need a great hardworking engineer? I am currently looking for a new job opportunity in robotics and/ or AI. 

Contact me directly or through LinkedIn:   

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On May 2, 2025, at 9:28 AM, camp . <ca...@camppeavy.com> wrote:



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[Nathan Lewis]

Weird Stuff closed 7 years ago 😅

- Nathan

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hbrobotics/D6603BA7-F853-48BD-A60B-D40F77957425%40gmail.com.

[Gmail]

😭 

Thomas

-  

Need something prototyped, built or coded? I’ve been building prototypes for companies for 15 years. I am now incorporating generative AI into products.

-

Need a great hardworking engineer? I am currently looking for a new job opportunity in robotics and/ or AI. 

Contact me directly or through LinkedIn:   

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On May 2, 2025, at 7:14 PM, Nathan Lewis <rob...@nrlewis.dev> wrote:



To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hbrobotics/23532d7d-8314-497c-953d-917879f9496a%40app.fastmail.com.

[Gmail]

Thanks for this post. Interesting. I’ll have to check out Outback when I am in the area again. 

Thomas

-  

Need something prototyped, built or coded? I’ve been building prototypes for companies for 15 years. I am now incorporating generative AI into products.

-

Need a great hardworking engineer? I am currently looking for a new job opportunity in robotics and/ or AI. 

Contact me directly or through LinkedIn:   

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ai-robotics/  

On May 2, 2025, at 6:45 PM, Lyle Bickley <lbic...@bickleywest.com> wrote:

I've lived in the Bay Area for many years, and Weirdstuff Warehouse was the
best. I knew everyone in management, and whenever they would come across a
vintage computer they would call me so I could help them set a price for the
system. I also knew just about all the members of the vintage collector
community here in the Bay Area - so I would let the appropriate collectors know
that WS had something to sell they might like.

Since there were a lot of us who were DEC buffs, I used to setup about once a
month a DEC Saturday - where collectors would meet at WS. (I would have had WS
gather all their DEC goodies in one section of the warehouse).

WS let me set the prices - which was really amazing to me. It just shows how
much WS cared about the vintage computer community.

Then Google bought the all of the land in the vicinity of WS (many acres).
They TRIPLED the rent for WS. WS said that would drive them out of business,
so Google lowered the price to "only" two times. WS was able to hang on - but
eventually found that they were only breaking even. At that point, WS quit
operation. It was very sad to see all their employees loose their jobs. Many I
had known for 15-20 years.

What is even sadder, Google did nothing with the land for several years.

I am NOT an anti-google person (I do AI beta testing for them). But I do get
frustrated by their actions at times.

Several of the former employees of WS now work at "Outback Equipment Company":

https://www.outbackequipment.com/index.php/

Outback is located in Gilroy, CA.

As was discussed previously, Anchor is still around, but almost every other
vintage computer/test-equipment company has left the heart of Silicon Valley
because of the high rents here.

Best,
Lyle
----

73   NM6Y
Bickley Consulting West
https://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

[Gmail]

Thanks for posting this list as well. 

Thomas

-  

Need something prototyped, built or coded? I’ve been building prototypes for companies for 15 years. I am now incorporating generative AI into products.

-

Need a great hardworking engineer? I am currently looking for a new job opportunity in robotics and/ or AI. 

Contact me directly or through LinkedIn:   

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ai-robotics/  

On May 2, 2025, at 5:19 PM, Ralph Hipps <ralph...@gmail.com> wrote:

Plus 1 (or 2 or 3) for anchor electronics! Love the place. Small but lots of good stuff!

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[A J]

Camp, there may be a few more stores.

https://www.jameco.com/

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2626885/micro-center-is-finally-returning-to-san-francisco-im-so-ready.html

On Friday, May 2, 2025 at 9:28:09 AM UTC-7 camp . wrote:

[Lyle Bickley]