gEDA-user: OT: You-Blew-It Electronics (was: Re: Home PCB and Liquid Tin)

[Stuart Brorson <sdb@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Apropos "You-Blew-It" Electronics, here's a link to those unfamiliar
with this Boston institution:

http://www.youdoitelectronics.com/

> Ok I know their prices are significantly higher than mail order from
> almost everywhere but why is it You-Blew-It?

I dunno exactly.  But back when I was a feckless undergrad, that's
what everybody called it.  The name always gave me the picture of a
geek who had assembled a circuit, flipped the power on, and the
circuit immediately burned up.  Ha ha -- you blew it!

At least for me, it did not have the connotation of making a mistake
about where you bought your stuff.  There was nothing essentially
wrong with the place (unlike Radio Shaft), and the moniker
"You-Blew-It" was intended solely to be jocular.

> While we are a little OT am I the only one who misses the days when
> they carried more components and fewer audio video cables. They are
> getting to much like radio shack.

I agree.  What I liked about the place back then was that it was what
Radio Shaft should have been:  A large store full of components and
other stuff important to a real electronics geek.  But now it's going
the way of Radio Shaft, selling cables and other consumer-oriented
junk.

To be fair, there remains a largish -- but shrinking -- section of the
store which still sells components.  But the Radio-Shackification is
probably happening because the number of hard-core EE hobbiests is
shrinking (the disappearing ham radio segment itself accounts for a
large part of that shrinkage), and the folks looking for components
now get them via internet search and mail-order from the likes of
Digi-Key.

You-Blew-It's retail operation remains a good place to go if it's
Saturday afternoon, and you've realized that you absolutely need a 10K
resistor right now, you can't scrounge one from anywhere in your
workshop, and you don't want to wait a week for mail-order.

Stuart


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