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Toms Tool and Tinker in Minnesota, RIP

Crawford

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2008
Messages
275
Location
Maryland
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
 
DEC boards with the gold fingers cut off are still useful for salvaging the unibus/q-bus level translator/buffer chips. These chips are hard to find and when you can find them, they are pricey.

I look forward to the pictures!
 
Where is this? I'm in the Twin Cities and never heard of it!

Off to google...

Ah - it's in Andover. I'm in Northfield, about as far south of the Cities as this is North. I'll have to see if I can make a trip...
 
Sweet, didn't know that existed. I'm going to have to swing around there sometime. I think I will be in that area on Friday. Anybody know the hours/days when they are open?
 
Sweet, didn't know that existed. I'm going to have to swing around there sometime. I think I will be in that area on Friday. Anybody know the hours/days when they are open?

If you go, find out what they might want for that Tek terminal - if you are not going to buy it yourself :). I'm interested depending on price/condition... Not sure when I might be able to make it up there myself.

Let us know if you find any other goodies while you are there.
 
Yes, definitely rescue the Tek terminal.

Looks like there is a half-disassembled toggle switch front panel to something in one of the photos, that might also be worth rescuing. Even if all you do is wire it up to a blinkenlight arduino thingy :)
 
Rats! I was really lusting over those font panels, and I’ve worked for that company for 36 years!
 
I'll never get there but on the rack of old instruments there was an early HP frequency counter. Those are valued collector items. I suspect there is other items there but the picture is too small to tell much.
Dwight
 
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