Bad news: Last Sunday was the July MIT Swapfest. It was pretty disappointing. I left after an hour (which is unheard of for me). I didn't see any interesting test equipment and took no pictures. The summer doldrums are one thing, but it seemed worse than that... The consensus among the sellers and buyers that I talked to was that the flea market is suffering from all the new construction in the area. There used to lots of parking in the area (there were hundreds of spots in the lot on the corner of Main and Portland, and at the Analog Devices plant on Osborn), but now there is virtually none. The lack of close parking is hurting buyer attendance, which discourages the sellers. It's a vicious cycle.
Good news: As I mentioned last September, there is "A Museum of Vintage Tektronix Equipment", vintageTEK.org, near Portland, Oregon. I have finally made plans to visit this coming weekend (July 27th). Watch this space for my upcoming trip report!
I also plan to hit some surplus shops and a bookstore. Here's the list that I have:
- Cascade Surplus Electronics, Portland (website says "shutting down")
- R5-D3 Electronic Surplus, Milwaukie
- Surplus Gizmos, Hillsboro
- Powell's Books, which no longer has a dedicated "Technical Books" storefront, but does still carry technical books in "Bldg. 2"
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