
Google bought the Weird Stuff building. Their last day is tomorrow - eyeareque
https://twitter.com/hunterscott/status/982384891231854592
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salgernon
Going there always made me feel inspired, excited, and reinvigorated with
creativity. Good for coders block. There is a thrill with holding an artifact
and considering its previous use and a potential use. Or just the challenge of
buying some vaguely non-functional vintage computer, learning about it,
repairing it.

I've found software that I've worked on, things I'd lusted after from
magazines, but couldn't have afforded at the time (ooh, a Telebit Trailblazer!
A wide format plotter!) and just weird (16 gross cleanroom booties! queCats!).
Once I found a box of floppies with the name of someone that I used to work
with at another company. Things just wind up there.

Oh well, I guess its going to have to be more frequent visits to the
foothill[1] flea market...[2]

[1] Not at Foothill[3] anymore - moved to DeAnza College.

[2]
[http://www.electronicsfleamarket.com/?electronics=](http://www.electronicsfleamarket.com/?electronics=)

[3] Big note on [2] that they're actually moving to the Fry's parking lot in
Sunnyvale for the first one of the year (April 14, 2018)

~~~
_jn
note on [3]: This year’s first flea market was on March 10th, 2018 :)

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cft
That's symbolic. This marks the end of DIY garage entrepreneural days of the
Silicon Valley. Now the corporate/careerist era has firmly settled in.

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ttul
The garages are in China now.

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eyeareque
The garages are too expensive now, as they’ve been converted into studio
apartments.

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saltcured
I remember feeling like they were the Fry's version of Mike Quinn's
Electronics.

I think that placed closed long ago, but was out in WWII era temporary
buildings near the Oakland airport and had lots of really weird stuff. I
remember seeing old test equipment that probably came from LBL and looked like
it should be on a movie set with some Jacobs ladders...

~~~
edoceo
Back when I lived down there I'd go out to Mike's like once a month (lived
over in Alameda, short bike ride).

I miss places like that. The "makers" of today would love them.

Always could find something cool to rig up to something else cool and have a
fun weekend project with the old man.

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eyeareque
My favorite memory about weird stuff: I have a no name rack mount server case
that was missing a key for the front lock. Unsurprisingly they had the exact
same case and sold me a spare for cheap.

I always loved looking at all the old gear there, it brought back a lot of
memories. Netopia, Netscreens, old Cisco routers, Sun servers.

Here's a blog post someone put up about the closing as well:
[https://rsts11.com/2018/04/06/weird-stuff-warehouse-is-
closi...](https://rsts11.com/2018/04/06/weird-stuff-warehouse-is-closing-this-
weekend/)

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chmaynard
Philadelphia had a similar high-tech junkyard back in the 1980's. I still have
the 4K wire-wrapped magnetic core memory board I bought there for a few bucks.
When backlit, the board is really quite beautiful.

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jen729w
Didn’t they have a commercial lease? Seems odd that they can just be kicked
out because ownership of the building changed. Unless commercial leases work
differently there than they do here (Australia)?

~~~
samwillis
If the lease period has lapsed it would have become a rolling monthly lease.
It’s quite common when landlords are interested in selling a property as it
makes it easy to do exactly this. The leaseholder usually likes it as well as
the rent will stay the same rather than go up.

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jsjohnst
Really saddened by this news. I’ve spent $$$ and time there over the years and
fondly remember the experience.

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trisimix
Does everyobe but me live in SO? This is weirdly specific.

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rhizome
End of an era. Not the same, but Halted's still around.

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Animats
It's all eBay now. I went to Halted for years, and the stuff stopped turning
over a decade or so back. What was left was stuff nobody wanted.

Wierd Stuff was where you went to get networking equipment from two
generations back.

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xchip
What a special place, I was there a couple of weeks ago and I had a blast
browsing around. I didn't know it was such an emblematic place!

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blueintegral
Correction: their last day is tomorrow, April 8th.

~~~
eyeareque
Thanks, I updated the title.

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tejasmanohar
Oh man, this place looks awesome. Sad I never made it out. Where will you all
be going now that it’s closed?

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himom
I remember them in the 80’s/90’s: new and used computer parts and tons of
shareware.

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petarb
I’m going to miss this place.

