Fry's Electronics Going Out of Business?

[metrologist]

Thanks Bill! 

[free_electron]

Halted moved from their big store into a smaller store a few years ago and a year or two after they moved they sold their operation to another company and moved their operations to the new owner’s facility near the SJ State campus. All of the old people seem to be gone and the new owners sell a bunch of junk in addition to what they acquired in the Halted purchase. The whole feel of the place is different and just not the same. 

Halted eventually sold all of their inventory to EXCESS SOLUTIONS after they had been closed for a few months.  Excess Solutions offered $6 Million and Halted took it.  Everything was moved to the Excess Solutions location at 7th and Alma in South San Jose CA.  From what I can see having been in Excess Solutions 4 or 5 times since the sale they have been trying to integrate Halted inventory into Excess Solutions inventory.  I have seen cardboard parts bin boxes that were at Halted now on the shelves.  I can tell because of the way they are marked and the handwriting.  One person from Halted is still working at Excess.  I can't remember his name right now but he is very friendly and helpful just like he was at Halted.  Also one of the ex-Halted employees volunteered to mark all of the semiconductor parts drawers that came from Halted and they are on the wall behind the front counter.  He was using an electronic DYMO machine and has done a wonderful job.  I took pictures of what was on the walls so that I could tell if they had what I wanted before I went into the store.  There is a wealth of older parts there!  ICs you can't get anymore, transistors that you can't get anymore.  He was hoping someone at Excess would then put a list of all of these semiconductors on the Excess Solutions website, but so far nothing.  Excess could do a good business in mail order sales if they would just get an inventory list on their website.  I have known Excess since 1981 and they have moved a number of time from San Jose to Milpitas and then back to the present location.  A lot of the Halted inventory is still in Saran wrap in the back of the store.  From what I am told no plans to unwrap and move into the area where you can browse.  Too bad in my opinion.  Excess has more in the back area than upfront.
Excess is still a wonderful place to find parts for repairs on old TE.
Bill

My big question is what happened to the inventory form ACE ( on old oakland street) when the owner died a coupe of years ago. I know Excess got some of it , but the main block went to some store in Morgan Hill ( one of the ebay-floggers). I have not been able to find out where. They had reels and reels and reels of semiconductors. That guy literally had anything. Even the most crazy obsolete parts he often had laying around. I got some of his last j-fets for keithley equipment.
The local assembly shops would often place big orders with him to get parts when digikey or mouser could not deliver. He was specialized in buying surplus semiconductors from production batches. Store did have a little capacitors and other parts , but his specialty was semiconductors. In the back there was an area filled with plastic tubes with every possible 74 and 54 series in existence. Need a side-brazed 54F181 ? got that ! they were 120$ a pop ... i once asked . but hey if you really needed a military grade 4 bit alu : it was there ...

[edavid]

My big question is what happened to the inventory form ACE ( on old oakland street) when the owner died a coupe of years ago. I know Excess got some of it , but the main block went to some store in Morgan Hill ( one of the ebay-floggers). I have not been able to find out where.

Sounds like Alltronics, they were the only surplus dealer in Morgan Hill.

http://www.alltronics.com/

[Bill158]

My big question is what happened to the inventory form ACE ( on old oakland street) when the owner died a coupe of years ago. I know Excess got some of it , but the main block went to some store in Morgan Hill ( one of the ebay-floggers). I have not been able to find out where.

Sounds like Alltronics, they were the only surplus dealer in Morgan Hill.

http://www.alltronics.com/

I think you are referring to Prism Electronics rather than Alltronics.  Prism Electronics is located in Morgan Hill CA and is on Sutter Blvd.  I live in Morgan Hill and I drive by Prism all the time and there is a huge bldg there.  Alltronics (Dennis Trimble) has a store on Scott Blvd in Santa Clara.  I really don't know who got the ACE inventory.  Neither Prism or Alltronics allows "walk ins" except for "will call" pickups.  Prism's website is somewhat hard to use unless you know exactly what you are looking for in the way of components.  The search function is incomplete at best.  It will tell you that it found 53 entries for your search but will only display about 10 with no way to get to the next "page" to see more items.  I like stores like the old Halted or now Excess Solutions because you can physically see the component and if necessary measure it's value or whatever if you bring your own measuring meter or tool.
Bill

[cdev]

Are you talking about that big warehouse like store near the Oakland airport.

I think it was maybe on Hegenberger Road?

Because I do remember hearing something about them. The place I remember is probably Mike Quinn Electronics.

Alltronics is at https://www.alltronics.com/

[Sal Ammoniac]

The surplus place near the Oakland airport was definitely Mike Quinn Electronics. I remember going there years ago. They typically sold stuff by the pound and had a lot of bizarre stuff.

[jmelson]

Sounds like Alltronics, they were the only surplus dealer in Morgan Hill.

Yes, I visited Alltronics MANY MANY years ago, they had an amazing rack of tubes of DIP chips that was something like 50 feet long, down both sides!

Jon

[jmelson]

The surplus place near the Oakland airport was definitely Mike Quinn Electronics. I remember going there years ago. They typically sold stuff by the pound and had a lot of bizarre stuff.

Yes, the original Mike Quinn in a temporary WW-II building at the Oakland airport was quite awesome.  You were walking on a 6" thick "carpet" of crunched circuit boards.  They had lots of VERY interesting stuff.  The newer place was still interesting, but not quite so awesome.

Jon

[andy3055]

Close to the bay, the only place I can thin of now is Al Lasher's Electronics. Even that is not very convenient as it is only one location. At least you can get all sorts of parts from them and they will order for you if needed. I believe it is a family business.

http://allashers.com/about/