Oh the good ol' days of driving over to San Jose and rummaging through
the surplus stores. RA electronics, Weird Stuff, Action Computers, and
whatever the two off Lawrence were. One across from Fry's and the other
up a ways towards 280. I can't believe I don't remember the names
anymore Weird Stuff and Action Computers were always the over priced
surplus stores I avoided back then. Now they are all that's left.
Probably because they could still afford to pay rent when the boom happened.
I admit to selling half the stuff I found back then but, it was on this
thing called the Usenet you really weren't supposed to be selling things
on.
So many 'e-recycers' now. Basically everyone with a pick-up truck is
calling themselves electronic recyclers now and posting flyers all over.
Al Kossow wrote:
   There seems to
be a recent trend on ebay for places that collect
 electronics for recycling to have someone who picks out the "old" items
 for sale on ebay. 
 They have been cherry picking the incoming stuff for years. The big
 one around
 here is Computer Recycling Center, next to Weird Stuff (who is in the
 same biz).
 Most modern PC stuff they get goes to schools, they eBay the stuff
 they can get
 money from, and put the dregs up for sale on Saturday mornings.
 Feeding frenzy
 at 9:00 AM when they open. I wander by every once and a while to pick
 up cheap
 PCI cards, or the odd bit of old software no one else wants.
 Most of the store front junk stores around here disappeared as
 manufacturing left
 the valley, and the bottom feeders from bankruptcies go directly to
 eBay now with
 no retail presence.