Specialized hardware

[Kristian K. Christensen]

Hey guys,

Being new to the country and working with embedded devices and other
little nifty things, I recently encountered a major problem.

My old soekris 4801 lost it's drive. In an attempt to get it back up and
running again, I went looking for hardware. Problem is, I have no clue
where to look. Walmart, Best Buy and similar stores only have the newest
and hottest equipment in store. I need a 20-40gb laptop size drive
that's not SATA and a 64-128mb CompactFlash that's not accelerated. This
seems nearly impossible to find, in stores known to me.

Where do you guys turn, for this kind of hardware?

Thanks in advance,
Kristian

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[Matt Shields-4]

On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 1:14 PM, Kristian K. Christensen <kkc@...>
wrote:

> Hey guys,
>
> Being new to the country and working with embedded devices and other little
> nifty things, I recently encountered a major problem.
>
> My old soekris 4801 lost it's drive. In an attempt to get it back up and
> running again, I went looking for hardware. Problem is, I have no clue where
> to look. Walmart, Best Buy and similar stores only have the newest and
> hottest equipment in store. I need a 20-40gb laptop size drive that's not
> SATA and a 64-128mb CompactFlash that's not accelerated. This seems nearly
> impossible to find, in stores known to me.
>
> Where do you guys turn, for this kind of hardware?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Kristian
>
>

Being on the BLU list I'm going to assume you're in the Boston area (I know
there are a few that aren't).  But if you are, in Cambridge there is
Microcenter (www.microcenter.com).



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[Mark J. Dulcey]

Kristian K. Christensen wrote:

> Hey guys,
>
> Being new to the country and working with embedded devices and other
> little nifty things, I recently encountered a major problem.
>
> My old soekris 4801 lost it's drive. In an attempt to get it back up and
> running again, I went looking for hardware. Problem is, I have no clue
> where to look. Walmart, Best Buy and similar stores only have the newest
> and hottest equipment in store. I need a 20-40gb laptop size drive
> that's not SATA and a 64-128mb CompactFlash that's not accelerated. This
> seems nearly impossible to find, in stores known to me.
>
> Where do you guys turn, for this kind of hardware?

You can probably use newer hardware without problems. Micro Center won't
have any PATA drives as small as 40GB, but they do have 80GB drives, and
those will probably work just fine in your system; it may not know what
to do with the extra capacity, but you probably don't care. Similarly,
the smallest CF card you can get will probably be 1GB, but it only costs
$10 so what the heck? You might find some smaller ones around, or you
can try places like drug stores and camera stores which also sell them.

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[Al Wheeler-2]

Kristian K. Christensen wrote:

> Hey guys,
>
> Being new to the country and working with embedded devices and other
> little nifty things, I recently encountered a major problem.
>
> My old soekris 4801 lost it's drive. In an attempt to get it back up
> and running again, I went looking for hardware. Problem is, I have no
> clue where to look. Walmart, Best Buy and similar stores only have the
> newest and hottest equipment in store. I need a 20-40gb laptop size
> drive that's not SATA and a 64-128mb CompactFlash that's not
> accelerated. This seems nearly impossible to find, in stores known to me.
>
> Where do you guys turn, for this kind of hardware?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Kristian
>

http://www.acroname.com/robotics/info/favorites.html

There used to be a place near the center of Framingham with just about
everything under the sun, a sort of a ancient very dusty warehouse
store. I forget the name and do not know if it is still there. I do not
think it was named PCExchange, but I recall something about "price
varies according to attitude".

Maybe you could put a want ad on ebay?

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[Don Levey-7]

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Al Wheeler wrote:
>
> There used to be a place near the center of Framingham with just about
> everything under the sun, a sort of a ancient very dusty warehouse
> store. I forget the name and do not know if it is still there. I do not
> think it was named PCExchange, but I recall something about "price
> varies according to attitude".
>

It may depend upon what you mean by "center of Framingham".  I know of a
place *in* a warehouse, near Saxonville, but that's nowhere near the
"downtown" (south side) area.  Do you have more details?

 -Don
  (in Framingham)
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[Al Wheeler-2]

Don Levey wrote:

> Al Wheeler wrote:
> > There used to be a place near the center of Framingham with just about
> > everything under the sun, a sort of a ancient very dusty warehouse
> > store. I forget the name and do not know if it is still there. I do not
> > think it was named PCExchange, but I recall something about "price
> > varies according to attitude".
>
>
> It may depend upon what you mean by "center of Framingham".  I know of a
> place *in* a warehouse, near Saxonville, but that's nowhere near the
> "downtown" (south side) area.  Do you have more details?
>
>  -Don
>   (in Framingham)

Sorry for the delay. It turned into a research project practically and,
well, I had to get some others things done....


Piecing the rest of it together from my brother who lives there abouts:

"Horizon Computer, I'm pretty sure..."

"the 3rd or 4th floor of a big old warehouse"

"closed some time back"

"They got sued by M$ for selling counterfeit software. Doubt they knew
it though."


This looks like the place that I think I remember.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Fountain+St+Framingham,+MA+01702&sll=42.251139,-71.442375&sspn=0.060483,0.17767&layer=c&ie=UTF8&ll=42.283119,-71.430917&spn=0.015113,0.044417&z=15&cbll=42.27555,-71.427073&panoid=sUIBUFDl2Pe3ckGdVw7hNg&cbp=1,85.68982244626125,,0,-7.604994267350838

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[Don Levey-7]

Al Wheeler wrote:

> Piecing the rest of it together from my brother who lives there abouts:
>
> "Horizon Computer, I'm pretty sure..."
>
> "the 3rd or 4th floor of a big old warehouse"
>
> "closed some time back"
>
> "They got sued by M$ for selling counterfeit software. Doubt they knew
> it though."
>
>
> This looks like the place that I think I remember.
>
> http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Fountain+St+Framingham,+MA+01702&sll=42.251139,-71.442375&sspn=0.060483,0.17767&layer=c&ie=UTF8&ll=42.283119,-71.430917&spn=0.015113,0.044417&z=15&cbll=42.27555,-71.427073&panoid=sUIBUFDl2Pe3ckGdVw7hNg&cbp=1,85.68982244626125,,0,-7.604994267350838
>

Ah, downtown (which is actually close to Ashland; the town common is in
the center but there are few businesses there relatively speaking).
There are a few more in Framingham, scattered around.  Too bad that one
closed; it sounds as if I could have used them...

  -Don

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[Al Wheeler-2]

Don Levey wrote:

> Al Wheeler wrote:
>> Piecing the rest of it together from my brother who lives there abouts:
>>
>> "Horizon Computer, I'm pretty sure..."
>>
>> "the 3rd or 4th floor of a big old warehouse"
>>
>> "closed some time back"
>>
>> "They got sued by M$ for selling counterfeit software. Doubt they knew
>> it though."
>>
>>
>> This looks like the place that I think I remember.
>>
>> http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Fountain+St+Framingham,+MA+01702&sll=42.251139,-71.442375&sspn=0.060483,0.17767&layer=c&ie=UTF8&ll=42.283119,-71.430917&spn=0.015113,0.044417&z=15&cbll=42.27555,-71.427073&panoid=sUIBUFDl2Pe3ckGdVw7hNg&cbp=1,85.68982244626125,,0,-7.604994267350838
>>
>>
>
> Ah, downtown (which is actually close to Ashland; the town common is
> in the center but there are few businesses there relatively speaking).
> There are a few more in Framingham, scattered around.  Too bad that
> one closed; it sounds as if I could have used them...
>
>  -Don
>

I used to commute from the west side of Worcester to the east side of
Revere. It seemed like down town to me. ;-)
Sorry it's a dead end.
You're already onto Saxoneville.

Is Eli Heffron & Sons in Cambridge relevant? I think they are more about
general electronics or robotics.

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