Such an interesting story. To really appreciate it you have to understand how central it was to the "tech" scene in the late late 70's and 80's.
During those years RadioShack was the maker movement. All the stuff you see today, Arduinos, pretty much everything in the AdaFruit[1] shop, that was RadioShack then. And unlike the Internet (or Jameco, or JDR, or Mouser or MPJ or any of a number of mail order places, you could walk out and get a resistor right now and the transistor you needed to finish a project or try something out.
Several things have conspired to make that harder, not the least of which is soldering got harder, chips got more complex with less documentation, and for a long long time "kids" could care less about building stuff. Now that its somewhat cool again they don't have a good 'tech' craft store.
For a while I fantasized about starting a store chain called 'Prototype Electronics' that would be focused on just that mission. Helping people get the stuff they need at a price they can afford to make cool things. I thought it might be fun to open up 'kiosk' type stores in makerspaces where the makerspace could share some of the revenue. Such a place would sell filament for 3D printers for example, and the RAMPS boards, and something like 80/20 materials, maybe the MicroRAX line. The trick being there would be certain things you could go in there knowing they would have it, cables and such sure, but things like a stepper motor or a common driver transistor. Sadly I don't see 'Hobbyist Retail Store' on the YC RFS page :-) a lot of work for relatively small margins.
[1] One very credible path might be to take the AdaFruit website, buy enough stuff to stock 1,000 stores in towns across the country, and see how it works out.
During those years RadioShack was the maker movement. All the stuff you see today, Arduinos, pretty much everything in the AdaFruit[1] shop, that was RadioShack then. And unlike the Internet (or Jameco, or JDR, or Mouser or MPJ or any of a number of mail order places, you could walk out and get a resistor right now and the transistor you needed to finish a project or try something out.
Several things have conspired to make that harder, not the least of which is soldering got harder, chips got more complex with less documentation, and for a long long time "kids" could care less about building stuff. Now that its somewhat cool again they don't have a good 'tech' craft store.
For a while I fantasized about starting a store chain called 'Prototype Electronics' that would be focused on just that mission. Helping people get the stuff they need at a price they can afford to make cool things. I thought it might be fun to open up 'kiosk' type stores in makerspaces where the makerspace could share some of the revenue. Such a place would sell filament for 3D printers for example, and the RAMPS boards, and something like 80/20 materials, maybe the MicroRAX line. The trick being there would be certain things you could go in there knowing they would have it, cables and such sure, but things like a stepper motor or a common driver transistor. Sadly I don't see 'Hobbyist Retail Store' on the YC RFS page :-) a lot of work for relatively small margins.
[1] One very credible path might be to take the AdaFruit website, buy enough stuff to stock 1,000 stores in towns across the country, and see how it works out.