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Tube❄️Time

HSC was on Ryder street for many, many years, but they had to move in ~2016. the building was demolished in May 2017.

57 comments
Tube❄️Time

HSC/Halted has had several other locations over the years, but served as a steady source of parts for hobbyists and engineers. many famous individuals bought things here.

invoice for an oscilloscope to Lee Felsenstein, early home computing pioneer.
a collection of four invoices made out to Steve Jobs, dated 1968 and 1969. the one on the top states "Heathkit scope"
Tube❄️Time

unfortunately, the company had to shut down their retail outlet in 2019.

interior of HSC's last location in Santa Clara. lots of shelves with cardboard bins full of electronics.
a cake from the last day in 2019. it's inscribed "Thank you HSC Customers!"
Tube❄️Time

most of their inventory got sold to Excess Solutions (located in San Jose).

paper sign "HSC has sold to Excess Solutions"
Tube❄️Time

this was great for a while, but on July 16, 2022, Excess Solutions opened their doors to the public for the last time. and on that day, I decided to get myself a guaranteed supply of chips, and two of my friends were totally down for it.

mannikin at Excess Solutions with a sign about them closing. paper "water droplet" stickers have been pasted on her cheeks.
Boxy building formerly the home of Excess Solutions. a 50% off sign is visible on the rollup door.
Tube❄️Time

we ended moving 80 cabinets -- containing 4,000 plastic drawers, to an undisclosed location where we could slowly pick through the collection, catalog it, and separate it out three ways.

a long line of metal cabinets with countless plastic drawers, each labeled with a part number.
Tube❄️Time

after separating out my share of the parts, i stuffed them into thousands of plastic ESD-safe bags, each labeled with a sharpie and stored in a moving box.

box filled with pink bags full of chips.
Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

over the last few months, i spent hours and hours carefully packing chips into separate drawers. by putting multiple part numbers into a single drawer, i was able to reduce it down to just 12 cabinets.

rows of neatly stacked chips in a plastic drawer.
Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

if you've been wondering why i haven't been posting as prolifically this year, this is the major reason.

Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

OK some answers to questions you might have:

* i don't want to run an electronics business so i'm not planning to sell any. doesn't mean i won't give parts to friends occasionally.

* yes, i have a catalog of parts organized in a spreadsheet, which makes it much easier to find things

Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

* yes, many of the drawers (for MOS parts) have ESD protection in the form of an aluminum foil layer. i applied it with glue and this custom 3D-printed jig.

3d-printed "die" that helped me form-fit foil into the bottom of many of the plastic bins.
Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

HSC originally used black ESD foam which degraded horribly over the years. i hate that stuff. i hate the sour smell it gets when it degrades, and i hated having to pick hundreds of chips out of crumbling, decaying foam.

Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

* rarest part i found? probably these 4004 processor chips. but there were other oddities in the collection, shift register memories, drivers, and that sort of thing.

a drawer full of 4004 CPU chips (!)
legnadibrom replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime how many parts succumbed to the black foam curse

[DATA EXPUNGED]
Tube❄️Time replied to DELETED

@carpetbomberz yeah they're neat but were state of the art for only a short time so nobody remembers them

Inari :acefox: replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime I bet there’s a bunch of nerds losing their shit over this right now.

Miles Goodhew replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime Holy heck! I've never seen so many 4004's!

Eric S. Pumpkins replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime This is amazing. I had been hoping someone that would take care of them got all the good stuff :)

Dan KB6NU replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime Now you can get into the calculator business. :)

Rue Mohr replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime Could I apply for some 1 bit SRAM with separate Din and Dout lines?

Tube❄️Time replied to Rue

@RueNahcMohr like a 2102 or something? those are still pretty common iirc

Rue Mohr replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime I dont know, I always wanted to make a digital delay out of one, could never find one of the static ram chips with separate IO lines.

Tube❄️Time replied to Rue

@RueNahcMohr a shift register memory would work better for that

Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

funny story, i loaned some parts in the 4000 series (support chips) to a friend of mine who ended up building a SUPER COOL PROJECT with them. like -- mind blowingly cool. keep an eye out for 4004-related news.

Obot 50549535 replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime
You're giving me flashbacks -- I built a lot of stuff out of 74LS about 40 years ago.

I know you didn't ask, but I am not crazy about aluminum foil for ESD protection. You don't want high conductivity, you want low (but non-zero) conductivity. That's what the black foam was doing, before it died of old age.

Foone🏳️‍⚧️ replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime did you find any chips damaged by that foam? I've heard it's slightly acidic so it can damage them over the long term

Tube❄️Time replied to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

@foone oh yeah plenty of chips with their legs rusted off

Hobson Lane replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime
Is foil a good idea? I thought ESD pads and plastic had some resistance?

Tube❄️Time replied to Hobson

@hobs it keeps all the pins shorted to each other.

Hobson Lane replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime
Intermittently shorting some of the pins as they jostle about. Any cap will discharge through the silicon quickly to another cap on another pin. Seems not ideal.

Jen Costillo :verified: replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime happy they didn’t just get trashed.

To me HSC and the like were the last vestiges of the Silicon Valley that I remember. Where else could I go over lunch with a friend and have random guessing discussions about what this or that machine does?

Tube❄️Time replied to Jen Costillo :verified:

@RebelbotJen yes! the guy was going to toss all the parts and sell the cabinets.

Ian Hanschen replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime I really want to know what you have - I don't have a good reason for it, just curious.

Jan Rychter replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime Sounds like you might need PartsBox 😀 (yes, I might be biased).

Tube❄️Time replied to jamespthomas

@jamespthomas oddly, no. most of the fun obvious stuff was already picked by the time i got it.

jamespthomas replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime your tube collection must b e impressive

SLCW💥 replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime I hope you've got a few projects lined up for all these chips.

Eli the Bearded

@tubetime

I have long wondered about your stock of old chips. This explains so much.

D. Creemer

@tubetime @Cdespinosa is there anyplace left? WeirdStuff, Halted/HSC, Excess Solutions, Disk Drive Depot, Fry’s???

Mark Pauley

@tubetime I spent a lot of time in that building…

Dan KB6NU

@tubetime I fondly remember trips to Halted and Haltek when I lived in Sunnyvale many moons ago.

Khalamov

@tubetime I remember going to HSC all the time when I lived in San Jose. I left the Bay area in 2012, then read about HSC closing online. I didn't know the building had been torn down. :(

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