I had a couple including one USB one that I later modified to use to scan regular bar codes.

I pulled up Wikipedia to look up who created them, and apparently he changed his name after they failed. He was also on Curse of Oak Island searching for gold and was involved in ballot shenanigans in the 2020 US presidential election where he was notable for supposedly inventing a machine to find bamboo fibers on ballots.

    • JaymesRSOPEnglish
      20·
      10 months ago

      I remember being a teenager in the 90’s and going in to see if I could special order a 75pf - 100pf Variable Capacitor. The guy behind the counter just said that he wasn’t going to help me because he knew I was just looking to make a cable descrambler to watch ppv porn. I mean, he wasn’t wrong, but it still hurt.

          • JaymesRSOPEnglish
            3·
            10 months ago

            Basically all of us in the 90’s watching scrambled porn.

        • Death_Equity@lemmy.worldEnglish
          29·
          10 months ago

          You could argue that, because he knew what it was most likely to be used for, he had foreknowledge of a crime and would then be knowingly facilitating the commission of that crime. So he may have been trying to err on the side of caution.

          Still a jerk.

          • x4740N@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            10 months ago

            Why yes, because those capacitors certainly aren’t used in any other way /s

    • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
      5·
      10 months ago

      Radio Shack the brand isn’t dead. Remember they filed ch.11 which is the reorganize bankruptcy.

      EDIT: Of course, to me, they died when they went whole hog with cell phones and less being able to walk in there and pick up various ICs. So in that sense Radio Shack died long before their bankruptcy.

      • _bug0ut@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        The one that was by me still kept a whole section in the back dedicated to electronics components and soldering kits until the bitter end. The rest of the store was crappy RC cars and cell phones, though.

        They closed down before I decided that I want to learn to solder and do electronics stuff for fun. Shame, but when I do eventually jump into it, it’s going to take more planning on my part so I have stuff on hand vs. just popping out to the store when I need something.