“Wi-Fi congestion in suburban areas has never been so bad, and sorting out the mess needs tools”
@jonhoneyball
The news that Fry’s Electronics has closed all of its stores across the US has left me rather upset. Yes, it was a bricks-and-mortar chain that sold computers and related peripherals. So does Currys PC World. But the difference couldn’t have been starker, at least in the distant past.
When I first visited San Francisco in 1991, I made visiting the Silicon Valley branches a “must do”. I was absolutely stunned by what I found. This place didn’t just stock computers – it had CPUs. All of them. In all speeds. Motherboards by the stack. RAM? Yes, all of that, in every flavour. There was enough stuff here for you to build any computer you might wish for. Then there were the shelves of tools and test equipment. And cables and adapters. Absolutely everything you could possibly want.
Going to Fry’s became a standard part of every trip I made to the US. It wasn’t unusual for me to go through the red channel at Heathrow with a receipt for $2,500 in components, useful items and widgets that were just unobtainable here in the UK.
To give you an idea of the magnetic appeal of Fry’s, let me tell you a tale. Back in 2005, a bunch of UK techies and journalists, including myself, were in Los Angeles for a Microsoft developer conference. The Sunday preceding the conference week was set aside for a press day.
We dutifully turned up, only to be told to leave by a very senior Microsoft head of development tools, because “you know too much and will be disruptive”. Smiling as we left, we decided that we had a day to fill. Fortunately, the previous evening, my
