Source of Parts

See also this previous post about Computer Reset:

Here are some I’ve used:
BG Micro in Texas, USA. Often has old parts. Very friendly and helpful. Been buying from them for over 30 years:
http://www.bgmicro.com/

All Electronics. Wide variety of old, strange, interesting, surplus thingies. Bought from them several times over the last 30 years or so. Always pleased.

Anchor Electronics, California, USA. Often have old style connectors and such (they had a bunch of S-100 connectors not too long ago. I think gone now.) I’ve bought from them a couple of times and been pleased.

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So you would call them reliable with real parts? No fake chinese knockoffs?

Best Electronics have quite a few parts, with an emphasis on Atari. And they also have a story of Atari’s custom disk controller chip, Ajax, which is quite interesting in itself:
http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/custom-i.htm#Ajax

Another place I’ve bought from a lot over the last 30+ years is Jameco. They carry a lot of older parts that are useful, as well as newer stuff. You can find 6502s, 8085s, various support chips, old memory chips, and lots more.
http://www.jameco.com

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One oddball place to find old computer equipment and parts, as well as anything electronic and other stuff, too, is hamfests. They are common in the US and I know there are some in other countries. Basically, they are amateur radio convention/swap meet/flea market. The Amateur Radio Relay League in the US has a database lookup to find one near you:

If you have never been to one, you should go. Some are huge, some are really small. But all of them are interesting. And you just might get a new hobby :slight_smile:

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Jameco is awesome. I’ve bought a ton of stuff from them over the years. They have a nice price on PCB offset kits so I get them there. I’m sure Mouser must have them, but I haven’t found what I wanted yet with any basic searches.

I started a thread on Mastodon about this and it’s already yielded a bunch of great resources.

I’ve already bought stuff from BG Micro and another place called Small Bear electronics.

(Here’s that mastodon thread)

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Here is a place I’ve never bought from, but they seem to have some good stuff for us. Although it seems their supply lines are drying up on the most-needed items:
https://www.arcadecomponents.com/index.html

Yes! This company might have the Mega ll chip I’ve been looking for. Thank you!

Is there no search function on that site?

Here’s a site someone on FB just told me about:

I used to buy stuff from Halted sometimes. I went to get a link and found they had been bought by excess solutions. I have never bought from them and know nothing about them. They do have some useful stuff, including an AMI version of TI’s 9900 processor.
http://halted.com/
http://www.excesssolutions.com/cgi-bin/item/ES2878

One place I like to buy a lot of parts from is Tayda Electronics. I believe they are based in China, and have prices close to ebay direct from China. But they have a warehouse in the US and I believe in Europe. It has never taken me more than a week to get stuff from them. Typical is five days. They sell a lot of stuff for hobbyists, but some of the stuff they carry is older stuff that should be of interest for retro computing. For instance, I bought several 74LS181 ALUs from them a couple years ago. They still list them but have been out of stock for a long time. They did get more in once after listing them out of stock, so maybe…
https://www.taydaelectronics.com/

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Oooh! Silicon Ark had some unobtanium LED drivers I need for a current studio preamp project I am embarking on. AWESOME.

Someone hipped me to Excess on Masto the other day and I already had it on the list.

Here’s a very specific one I found a few years ago. I was going to be in need of a vintage can capacitor replacement for a 1966 Heathkit tube hifi amp kit I have. I could have taken it apart and restuffed it, but I found a company that does this, and they have the best name.

Hayseed Hamfest:

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(You win the three-in-a-row award here @Ricardus!)

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So I actually ordered the can capacitor from them and and I wanted to show it off. It came in yesterday’s post. Can’t wait to finish this old Heathkit amp. But then again, I’m, building a few SSL 9000 clone mic preamps, 2 Urei 1176 clones, and any number of other small projects to support my live sound gigs.

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I have Hayseed Hamfest caps in a Drake TR-4, Drake 2-B, and I think a Central Electronics 200-V (I’m not 100% sure the latter is Hayseed, I don’t remember). I’ve been very happy with his parts. He can also stuff custom capacitors, given specifications. I quoted one of those a few years ago (for the CE transmitter) and I recall thinking that the quoted price was quite reasonable.