Michael Black wrote:
Matt J. McCullar writes:
Every ham should have the chance to browse through a store like Nortex.
It
was literally one of those hole-in-the-wall places; it was off the
beaten
track just enough that you'd never find it by chance. I don't know if
he
ever advertised the place, but if you tinkered with electronics in Fort
Worth long enough you were bound to hear of the place.

I wonder how common that experience was?

When I was a kid, about 1974, about three years after I first went into
an electronic store (it was Etco Electronics here in Montreal, which did
mail order so maybe some remember it), I heard from two very different
people about some store where "you can buy a handful of resistors for
5cents" or words to that effect. Both people spoke of it in legendary
terms, and had yet to visit it so they'd heard of it from someone else.

I went with one of them, and it was like a supermarket, complete with
baskets
at the door. A mixture of industrial surplus and components for tv
and radio repair.

It's also the only local place remaining from back then, the only place
still with wooden floors and like the old school of electronic store.

And any time someone asks about getting components in the local newsgroup,
invariably someone mentions the place, far ahead of the fancier electronic
distributors that have risen up in more recent years (and actually which
have been around for decades at this point, but never match the feel
of those old stores).

Michael VE2BVW

In Seattle, it was Nuclear Electronics, run by Jeff Atwood... with LOTS of
neat-o antique/surplus "junque". It was worth the long bicycle ride for
this teenage kid who was a new ham!
Bryan WA7PRC