Folks,
I was in Minneapolis recently visiting my daughter. I went by one of my favorite junk stores in the area, Toms Tool and Tinker. I knew it was closed, but thought there was a slim chance it had been sold.
There were actually people there. Tom fell ill, and his children sold the place, but I met the new owners, who bought it for their masonry business. They allowed me to walk around and make a bit on whatever I found. I ended up with a stack or PCB’s including an 8k core memory board for a pdp/8a. I also found an unused OSI 610 board, and some Nixie tube boards. I offered $30 for the stack, and Steve, the new owner gladly accepted. Steve wants to clear out the warehouse and is willing to take offers, so he has less to clear out later.
I would encourage anyone in the Minneapolis area to swing by and take a look. Realize there is a lot of stuff/junk there. I will try to post pictures I took. Sadly, someone (maybe Tom) destroyed a lot of PCBs by cutting off the edge connectors. While I did once find a MCS-4 board with and early ceramic 4004, it had a cut-off connector. You may find useful stuff or not. I hate to see places like this go away, I guess many of us do. Steve is trying to clear out the warehouse in the next couple of months.
-Crawford
I was in Minneapolis recently visiting my daughter. I went by one of my favorite junk stores in the area, Toms Tool and Tinker. I knew it was closed, but thought there was a slim chance it had been sold.
There were actually people there. Tom fell ill, and his children sold the place, but I met the new owners, who bought it for their masonry business. They allowed me to walk around and make a bit on whatever I found. I ended up with a stack or PCB’s including an 8k core memory board for a pdp/8a. I also found an unused OSI 610 board, and some Nixie tube boards. I offered $30 for the stack, and Steve, the new owner gladly accepted. Steve wants to clear out the warehouse and is willing to take offers, so he has less to clear out later.
I would encourage anyone in the Minneapolis area to swing by and take a look. Realize there is a lot of stuff/junk there. I will try to post pictures I took. Sadly, someone (maybe Tom) destroyed a lot of PCBs by cutting off the edge connectors. While I did once find a MCS-4 board with and early ceramic 4004, it had a cut-off connector. You may find useful stuff or not. I hate to see places like this go away, I guess many of us do. Steve is trying to clear out the warehouse in the next couple of months.
-Crawford