On Thu, 1 Mar 2018 12:53:49 -0000 (UTC), Ian
wrote:

On 2018-03-01, Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 01 Mar 2018 11:26:41 +0000, Ian wrote:

Apropos not much, I always considered Maplin a bit of a toy shop rather
than a serious electronics components supplier, even back in the 80's.
I was spoiled by having Electrovalue in walking distance though, anyone
remember them?

I was thinking about them yesterday when the whole Maplin thing blew up.
Let me see...Englefield Green, Egham?

That was the HQ, yes. For me it was the northern branch, Burnage Lane in
Manchester. Now it's a hairdressers.

Randomuselessfact, they were one of the first places you could buy blue
LEDs. The price was listed as (something like) 31.34. A later edition of
the catalogue added "POUNDS EA" to that line only, just to make it clear.

The earliest commerically viable LEDs were initially 130 quid a pop from a
Japanese manufacturer. One lunchtime a quick calculation demonstrated a colour
telly with an LED display was going to cost at that point in time some 60
million quid or so.

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