Silicon Valley’s Island of Misfit Tech
Need a shrinkwrapped copy of Windows 3.1, a Commodore disk drive, or a BetaMAX tape? You need the Weird Stuff Warehouse.Posted by Harry McCracken | Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The warehouse’s shelves may be lined with reminders of how much technology has changed for the better, but it may also leave you wistful for certain things we’ve lost. My $200 HP all-in-one printer is an amazing advance on this $1495 LaserJet IIP from 1989 in any manner of ways, but it’s so flimsy that the paper tray falls off almost every time I touch it. The LaserJet feels like it’s built out of ultra-sturdy materials no longer used in the manufacturing of computer peripherals.
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Where the History of Tech is For Sale Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 7:26 am[…] View Silicon Valley’s Island of Misfit Tech slideshow. […]
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TechRadio » Yikes… > I < remember this… Says:
February 12th, 2010 at 3:03 pm[…] One persons visit to Silicon Valley’s Island of Misfit Tech […]
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IRIX CD-ROM | Breaking Eggs And Making Omelettes Says:
March 25th, 2010 at 7:56 pm[…] little while ago, an article made the rounds which detailed a visit to The Weird Stuff Warehouse in Silicon Valley. Since I have a thing for weird, obscure stuff, I knew I had to pay a […]
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Silicon Valley’s Island of Misfit Tech | JetLib News Says:
April 1st, 2010 at 12:15 am[…] writes “For more than 20 years, Sunnyvale’s cavernous, aptly-named Weird Stuff Warehouse has sold an amazing array of salvage and surplus computer products. It’s like a tech museum […]
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And That’s What You Missed on Technologizer Says:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:34 pm[…] Silicon Valley, I visited the Weird Stuff Warehouse, a sort of a computer history museum where everything was for […]
February 11th, 2010 at 8:26 am
I still have Word 6 in the box, should send it to those guys; along with my PowerMac 8500.
February 11th, 2010 at 8:48 am
1. Microsoft Internet Explorer Starter Kit (I have an un-thrown-away copy) was for both Mac and Windows. We went to it for Mac customers (of our ISP) after Adam Engst’s Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh became so long in the tooth that the browser it included would not download newer browsers. We went to it for Windows users in place of providing them with a copy of Opera and of a TCP/IP stack from Australia. In those days, one already knew how to use the computer before tackling the Internet–ISP support did not yet have to teach use of the mouse.
2. The steam tunnel network under National Cash Register’s (later NCR) Dayton OH factory had some intersections with traffic signals, in an attempt to keep the fork lifts from colliding and to keep the pedestrians separate from the fork lifts. No walking while texting and listing to portable music down there (I spent lots of time there in the late 1960s). (Triggered by the walk/dont walk signs)
3. I had a converted IBM Selectric attached to my Apple ][. I wrote a little program in a mix of 6502 code and Sweet-16 which allowed me to get printed copies of my online sessions with CompuServe and The Source. (It used a big ring buffer to deal with the fact that the connection was faster than the Selectric–it was tough getting used to having the echos of what I typed arrive well after I did the typing.)
Thanks for those (and the other) memories.
What, no IBM 650 drums?
February 11th, 2010 at 9:10 am
What’s so special? All of these slides are just like the stuff on my desk and in my basement. 🙂
February 12th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Those round circuit boards look like silicon wafer probe cards to me. They’re pretty common in the tech industry.
February 12th, 2010 at 11:20 am
Man, I thought I was going to see stuff from the dawn of computing. This is stuff from what we on the Right Coast like to call “garbage sales”. Not old enough to be collector’s items (and maybe never will be), not new enough to matter. So basically it’s like someone’s collection of old, moldy basement contents.
February 12th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Seeing the original USR Palm Pilot really makes me nostalgic, for some unexpected reasons. I recently got my Motorola Droid phone and even with all its whiz-bang features, it makes me miss the simplicity and ease of use of the basic ToDo, Calendar and Memo pad that shipped with the original Palm Pilot. Seriously–why is 13 year old technology more pleasant to use than the latest & greatest?
February 12th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Regarding the walk/dont walk signs:
When i was in college, we had to rig up a PLC to work with a traffic light. They have a store like this down in the Twin Cities of Minnesota as well.
February 12th, 2010 at 11:36 am
The round board in the photo is a probe card used to operate integrated circuits while they are still in wafer form (prior to packaging). You can see the group of tiny probes in the hole in the center. This card would plug into a larger board that carried electronics to power up and operate the DUT (device under test) for testing, pass/fail or characterization work.
February 12th, 2010 at 11:44 am
The round circuit boards are for rotary systems. Imagine a camera that can be controlled to view a full 360 degrees. The center rings are for the electrical interface that twists while the outer ring of through holes remain fixed.
February 12th, 2010 at 11:46 am
The round circuit board is an IC test jig, like those made by Kulicke & Soffe, SV Probe, etc.
February 12th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Slide 7 is what is called a probe card used in testing a small pre-packaged part. Probably from about 20 years ago. See the array of probe pins in the center?
This one looks as thoughit was a hard wired to an early tester, such as a Fairchild.
February 12th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
oh yeah, well I got MS Frontpage 1.0 still shrinkwrapped from WSH!
February 12th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
John Baxter: “In those days, one already knew how to use the computer before tackling the Internet–ISP support did not yet have to teach use of the mouse.”
All I can say is, Amen.
If I’m not mistaken, there are still some people who use Trumpet Winsock to connect to the ISP where I hang out.
Slide 6; I’m sure I’m way off, but it reminds of part of an elevator controller. There’s a set of rotating discs which move up and down in proportion to the elevator cabin, one disc for each floor. The discs have contacts on them which signal when to slow/stop the lift motor.
Slide 12: They still have a typewriter similar to the one pictured in the university department office where I work. I wondered if they still used it, until the other day when I was getting coffee from the break room and I heard the almost-forgotten sound of “clack-clack-clack clackity-clack”.
P.S. You can still download the “latest” version of Trumpet Winsock from Mr. Tattam 🙂
February 12th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Reminds me of another surplus/junk place called The Black Hole in Los Alamos, NM. What’s cool about the Black Hole is that not only can you buy old computers and Selectrics, but also dozens of oscilloscopes and various nuclear test equipment. Some of the temp gauges laying around there have ranges on the Kelvin scale. There’s also a geiger counter just inside the front door, clicking a little faster than I’m comfortable with.
While the Black Hole is still in operation, its founder Ed Grothus passed away last year. He and his shop were also the subject of a documentary entitled ‘Atomic Ed and The Black Hole’. Put it on your list, you’ll be glad you did.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Humm… you did not seem to go into the back room where stuff gets weirder like racks of old networking gear, 1200 & 2400 baud modems, boxes of ISA PC cards, oddball printers, 10base-5 and 10base-2 co-axial Ethernet gear, etc…
And Weird stuff is not nearly as weird as it used to be when it was in (near?) Milpitas. Back then, the stuff was heaped on the shelves in no particular order. Computer stuff, circuit boards, high vacuum equipment, mechanical equipment, old military gear, multibus and VME bus gear, video gear, etc… It seemed like they went to surplus/liquidation auctions and brought it back and added it to the piles. Not much sorting and very little cleaning. Much of it had no prices, you went to the counter and haggled. Back then it really was *Weird Stuff*.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Wierd Stuff is one of the last of a dying breed. 20 years ago the are had tons of these places, most of which have sadly fallen away (RIP Haltek).
I think that part of it is due to the evolution of Silicon Valley: 20 years ago everyone was making hardware and the surplus went to Wierd Stuff, Haltek, et al. Not much interesting surplus from failed Web companies…
February 12th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I’m one of the “early” crew that started into computing just before the dawn of most of these things. What a blast from the past – thanks for the memories. BTW, I’ve actually used most of that stuff at one time or another!!!! Am I getting old?
February 12th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
I work at Radioshack, and we still sell those simulated security cameras for $20 [ http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049770 ]. Amusingly enough the company is so cheap that we use the simulated cameras in the store in place of real cameras. Sometimes even the customers notice it.
February 12th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
I love the gallery but holy cow, convert those images. They’re 500kb PNGs. At the quality they’re at now they could be 30kb as .jpg. I hope you don’t pay usage based.
February 13th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Spectacular place, A Temple of Timely Technology! I’ve been here in Silicon Valley for almost forty years, and have enjoyed every visit to the place.
February 13th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
I still remember going to Weird Stuff around 10 years ago and finding what looked like the Mother of All Fuses: around 6 inches long, an inch in diameter, and with solid copper busbar contacts about 1/4 of an inch thick. Looked like it might have come from an electrical substation. Blowing a monster fuse like that must be spectacular. Sadly, I’ve never since come across anything quite so cool there.
February 13th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Having just filled out a stack of IRS-mandated QUADRUPLICATE 1099 forms, I can assure you that the Selectric is not obsolete!
I still have my Toshiba 3100e luggable with the original manuals. Still one of the nicest designs keyboard-wise of any computer I’ve ever used. That absolutely flat aluminum keyboard Apple is stamping out by the millions is absolutely awful. All looks, no function. Pity that, in terms of manufacturing, it’s pretty amazing
Can somebody make a keyboard that duplicates the action of a Selectric? Please? My price point would be well over $100 IF they got it right.
February 15th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
I was in Dolores park yesterday and saw someone banging out fortunes onto sheets of paper with a handy reliable typewriter. Its not yet that easy with a laptop + printer combo. at least not an affordable printer…
February 20th, 2010 at 7:51 am
That’s nothing I still have a Heathkit H8 running CPM operating system.
It still works with it’t 4mh CPU & 64k of ram & 3 hard sectored floppy discs.
February 20th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
“Those round circuit boards look like silicon wafer probe cards to me. They’re pretty common in the tech industry.” Posted by Black Cardinal
Black Cardinal is absolutly correct. This is a silicon probe card. I used to work for a company that manufactured both the holders and probing stations for these.
July 10th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Thanks for the trip back in time Harry. The commodore 64 pic bought a tear to my eye. I remember when I got my brand spankin new PB166mhz, 32mb PC. My mate had bought one 6 months earlier, and was loading Win95 by floppy (was it 24 floppies?) I got the cutting edge tech, a CD Rom, he was so jealous. It only took me a couple of hours to load Win95, where he had to spend all day (or longer).