Conrad Electronic closes almost all retail stores for private customers!

[rock soderstrom]

I have not been there much lately. One less store where you can buy components on the fly. In Berlin there is now only Segor.

Edit: Conrad Electronic = german RadioShack

 

[cyrano]

We used to have about a dozen electronics shops in one street in Antwerp. They're all gone.

The same for oldfashioned hardware stores. Eradicated by chain stores. Even the car parts stores are going the way of the dodo.

Sad, but you can't stop progress, I guess.

 

[pucho812]

wow this saddens me.
Radio shack at one point actually had parts and things, then they slowly migrated into t.v.'s cell phones and other things while the parts bins got smaller and smaller. I am lucky in L.A. we still have 3-4 really good electronics shops where I can do a emergency run and get some capacitors or connectors and even some general purpose ic's and sometimes vacuum tubes. But we as well have had our fair share of stores that used to deal in that exclusively which have shut down.

 

[sahib]

Sad, but you can't stop progress, I guess.

Indeed very sad. But "progress" would not be the correct terminology to describe it. This is not progress.

Three names that I grew up with (in Istanbul) in '70s.

Graupner, RIM and Elektor.

I wrote to Graupner in 1975 (I was 14) asking for their catalogue, thinking that they would send me a flyer. This heavy, coffee table, full blown colour catalogue arrived. It was probably the most beautiful thing I had ever seen until then. I used to get lost in that book, dreaming about those models. That kicked off my modelmaking career.

My father had an electrical engineering business and won a contract for a public address system in 1976-77. My brother ordered a copy of RIM catalogue to one of their clients who was a German gentleman. I moved on from dreaming to hallucination in that catalogue. It kicked off my electronics career.

At the same time I borrowed some Elektor magazine from a family relation. Built my first power amplifier with a friend of mine. Edwin 40W with 2N3055s on the output.

Good old days.

 

[cyrano]

Graupner?
I remember that name mainly for radio controlled stuff. Way too expensive for me as a fourteen year old

I also spent hours on end with catalogues from Eagle, Monacor, TTI etc. And car magazines like "Custom cars" and "Hotrod magazine". Both from the UK.

Don't know RIM, though.

I built my first amp, also with 2N3055s from an Elektor design too. We live across from a newspaper store. I got my Elektor (and Radio Bulletin) from them and buggered them every day if it was late.

That newspaper shop is gone too. The new one down the road hardly stocks any magazines. Gutter press, yes. Tech stuff no.

 

[rock soderstrom]

This heavy, coffee table, full blown colour catalogue arrived. It was probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen until then. I used to get lost in that book, dreaming about those models. That kicked off my modelmaking career.

My father had an electrical engineering business and won a contract for a public address system in 1976-77. My brother ordered a copy of RIM catalogue to one of their clients who was a German gentleman. I moved on from dreaming to hallucination in that catalogue. It kicked off my electronics career.

At the same time I borrowed some Elektor magazine from a family relation. Built my first power amplifier with a friend of mine. Edwin 40W with 2N3055s on the output.

Good old days.

I know exactly what you mean!

 

[sahib]

Graupner?
I remember that name mainly for radio controlled stuff. Way too expensive for me as a fourteen year old

It was too expensive for me too.

Don't know RIM, though.

RIM Electronic. They offered (mainly) audio electronic kits. Below are some images from their '67 catalogue (my own archive).

Ahh, RIM means "Radio Industrie München" a company that was famous for their electronic DIY kits and publications. RIM was taken over by
Conrad Electronic in 1991.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Rim
here a link to some of their famous "Baumappen" ("Build instructions")

http://sites.prenninger.com/elektronik/bausaetze/rim/rimbaumappen

 

[PermO]

Here's a pic of a RIM DIY broadcast mixer kit....

A friend of mine scored it at an auction site, the wiring was never completed but all the modules are there... I've got all the documentation on this thing from @jensenmann

The plan is to complete this thing and maybe put some extra stuff / mods on it... it was so cheap he bought it for the case.

 

[cyrano]

@PermO

That looks a lot like a kit from MBLE/Philips I drooled about as a kid. Prototype or RIM version?

These still surface on marktplaats.nl from time to time. Good mixers, if built correctly. Philips never made money on it, though. Sales numbers were far too low for a giant like Philips.

@sahib

Thanks for the look into your archive. My stuff from that era is gone. Way too much paper to keep.

 

[PermO]

Yes, found on Marktplaats.nl it is branded RIM.