"Mike Dodd" wrote in message
news:45946fdc.0@entanet...
Sylvain VAN DER WALDE wrote:

I've just looked at the latest Maplin catalogue (bought a few days ago),
and they still list these resistors (Metal film 0.6 W).
Something to keep in mind: I went to their new store in Parkway Road
(Camden) to buy some CPU thermal pads. They didn't have any, and said
that they had been discontinued. I was told that the Tottenham Court Road
branch had 5 left.
I went to that branch and bought some from them; and upon enquiring about
their discontinuation, I was told that they knew nothing about it.

A couple of years ago I got quite excited about a new microcontroller
chip, a very capable Atmel device, if memory serves me correctly. Anyway,
strode confidently into the shop, waded over the RC-cars, joy-rider
BOOM-boxes, Disco-Dave Decks, etc. to be told, that although these were
standard items, each shop had to get "so-many" pre-orders / requests
before the shop would be allocated stock... "So sir, would you like to
order one?". Sod that.

I'm afraid Maplin has changed for the growing market, and the old days of
hobbiest electonics has long gone.


remembers, fondly, the days of Tandy, with their idiosyncratic component
selection


I still have one of their "Micronta" talking programmable clocks. Used
almost every day.

Sylvain.