4 ms·
Where else could you simultaneously purchase through-hole transistors, a gaming motherboard, a 19" rack, a leafblower, a loudspeaker disguised as a plastic rock
by pjs_ 1y ago
Where else could you simultaneously purchase through-hole transistors, a gaming motherboard, a 19" rack, a leafblower, a loudspeaker disguised as a plastic rock, pornography, a taser, a sandwich and a decent cup of coffee while surrounded by fiberglass cowboys and aliens... sad to see
- charcircuit 1y agoEbay? Amazon? Temu?
- timewizard 1y ago[before those existed]
- LeoPanthera 1y agoDon't forgot the knock-off cologne!
- classichasclass 1y agoSandwiches, too. Ate at the cafe a fair bit. When my buddy was living on Victory and Hollywood we hit Burbank on a regular basis. Of the Burbank, Fountain Valley, San Marcos, San Diego, Anaheim Hills, Roseville, Sacramento, Fremont, Las Vegas and Sunnyvale locations, I think I liked the San Diego one most for selection (it was a former Incredible Universe), but the Roseville and Las Vegas ones had the wildest themes, even more than the Burbank UFO. But the Fremont location when I ended up there in 2019 was deader than a doornail, and it was like waiting for the next hit to kill them. The next hit came sooner than I thought.
- bwfan123 1y agoif you looked hard, you might even find the offices of the American Institute of Math at a fry's location... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_of_Mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_of_Mathemat...
- Animats 1y agoFry's American Institute of Mathematics built and operated a 192-acre golf course in Morgan Hill.[1] There was some suspicion that was the real purpose of the Institute. They'd been trying to build a large clubhouse (er, "headquarters") on the site, built to look like the Alahambra castle and equipped with guest rooms, a wine cellar, and "a gourmet-industrial kitchen with master chefs from a San Francisco seafood restaurant and a Napa Valley resort." That was not, apparently, built. Here's what it was supposed to look like.[2] [1] https://www.greenfoothills.org/pga-tour-eyes-frys-course https://www.greenfoothills.org/pga-tour-eyes-frys-course [2] https://archive.is/1sukx https://archive.is/1sukx
- CalRobert 1y agoNot to mention the history of having been an Incredible Universe on Tandy drive in the case of the Sacramento one
- unclebucknasty 1y agoAnd each one of those items would somehow have a dead pixel.
- 01100011 1y agoI loved Fry's and shopped there often in the 90s and 00s but it did seem like half of the things I bought there had to be returned for one reason or another.
- flomo 1y agoOnce I was returning something at the Palo Alto Fry's and the couple ahead of me had a laptop where someone had removed the battery and replaced it with a sandwich. Only at Fry's.
- martinpw 1y agoI once returned a product that was not working to the Burbank Fry's location. I walked around the store for a bit, then passed by the section where that product was sold - and saw the product I had returned back on the shelf. Could tell by the way I had torn it open - they had just wrapped it back up and put a small discount on it.
- unclebucknasty 1y ago>for one reason or another. Exactly that. It was never that it straight-up didn't work. It was just that there was some issue. I first encountered it with a TV that literally had a dead pixel. From there, the next 3-4 purchases featured something wrong. Monitor's built-in settings menu didn't display, cordless phone speaker issue, etc. Dead pixels. No way it was random. Funniest part was they'd get snippy with their return policy, like you were the problem.
- rmason 1y agoWhenever I was out in the Valley I'd visit one or more Fry's. Then there was Weird Stuff Warehouse and Computer Literacy Bookstore. There probably wasn't any area the size of Silicon Valley that had stores that even remotely compared. Always spent more than I budgeted but never felt bad about it.
- Gibbon1 1y agoThere was Halted and this other one I liked better Alltronics? run by an old amateur radio guy. Originally it was in Los Gatos. But then moved north new Zanker Rd. Just being able to look at all the various components was a good education.
- MrTrvp 1y agoporn magazines! haha man
- JKCalhoun 1y agoWhen I first moved out to the Bay Area in 1995 and discovered Fry's it was wire-wrapping tools, sockets, enclosures, electronic components, porn magazines, junk food, soft drinks, Computer Shopper magazines....
- iancmceachern 1y agoComputer shopper!
- walterbell 1y agohttps://archive.org/details/computer_shopper https://archive.org/details/computer_shopper
- iancmceachern 1y agoDelicious, they even scanned the cardstock ad inserts
- AStonesThrow 1y agoYou could literally purchase a bag of chips (SIMMs) on one aisle, and a bag of chips (Fritos) in another! I must admit that “Big Boob Babes” was my favorite CD-ROM purchase in 1994. No, it was not a DVD This morning, I was just watching the video of “The Distance” by Cake, and I vividly recall when that was released and played on my car radio, and the metaphor of corporate slavery was not lost on 24-year-old me. My favorite store was the one with the Mesoamerican temples and stuff. Also, remember Weird Stuff Warehouse?
- JKCalhoun 1y agoI have an extension cable that still has the bright orange Weird Stuff Warehouse sticker on it. I will never remove it.
- hbarka 1y agoThe Computer Shopper magazine. How it was 3/4” thick full of content every edition just amazed me.