What is weird about the electronics store is that it no longer carries
semiconductors except for LEDs, diodes and selected transistors. They
dropped the line as they said it was not selling and it had a huge
inventory cost. And this outfit is very busy as it sells to installers.
I think their biggest seller is cat-5 cable followed by the hardware
that goes with it. The repairmen have gone the way of the buggy whip
makers.

Most comsumer electronics have gone to the surface mounted devices and few
can work on them. The repair people will usually send off the whole board
for a replacement they get for a fixed price. Now each manufactor has their
own special IC to do the differant jobs. There is no subistution. About 15
to 20 years ago there were several makers of transistors that had the
universal replacements where a few devices could replace thousands of
differat types.