An Appropriate Name

Do you ever wonder where old technology goes to die? You don’t? Well why not? “2001: A Space Odyssey,” proved machines have souls, or at the very least can sing off key. Although unlike HAL, most modern machines only sit silently when they malfunction instead of politely refusing a command with an, ‘I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that."

Considering the useful life of items like computer components and cell phones is about 15 minutes between their time of sale to when their replacements are on the shelves, there is a glut of technology that is still useful, but alas because of real or perceived obsolescence is unloved and unwanted. Fortunately there is a place in the Bay Area where they can go to live again. It’s an appropriately named store, well, more of a cluttered warehouse, called ‘Weirdstuff."

I discovered it by accident in the late 1980’s while actually trying to locate a Fry’s Electronics. The name drew me in, and it did not disappoint. I was delighted to find old game cartridges for my TI-99/4A, old pc software, (remember when Microsoft Works fit on a pair of floppy disks?), and a barrel of circuit boards labeled… “Barrel of Boards.” Who couldn’t love a store where most items were labeled with a garish orange sticker emblazoned with “Guaranteed Not To Work. If It Does, You May Exchange It For One That Doesn’t.”

There was much more than just computer components, the place was an electrical engineer’s heaven. You could get oscilloscopes for a few dollars, mounting racks for a mainframe computer, (all true Americans need a mainframe), testing meters of all types, enough cables to sew the San Andreas Fault closed, and at one time something my dad would have loved, a vacuum tube tester. Dad was an engineer, and felt in many ways a lot of technological progress was more hype than real advancement. He was ticked when the only store in town with a vacuum tube tester got rid of it as he would have gladly taken it off their hands. I wonder if the one in Weirdstuff was the same one.

Dad was always building things from scratch, more often than not just because he could. It’s a shame he left California for Indiana before Weirdstuff opened, or he would have pitched a tent in their parking lot to live in. And what he would have built would have been staggering. I imagine he would have started with a bunch of robots with the sole function of terrorizing mom’s dog. After that he would have added more robots to keep some neighbors and assorted relatives to keep honest.

And of course they’d use vacuum tubes.