I spent many a happy visit to Al Lasher's when the microcomputing revolution was just turning over its starter in the SF Bay area. The acid in the oil/perspiration from my face is probably still etched in the windows of East Bay buildings that used to house IMSAI, CompuPro, etc. (assuming they're still even standing, which is not a good bet, given the crazy property values these days). I would peer in during stops while driving down to the East Bay on Sundays from the Navy Nuclear Power School at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, to look for the magic that was happening.
The answer to Fred's question below about will any remain, is yes, as long as you consider Eastern Europe within commuting distance. You can still get vacuum tubes and core memory for a pittance from there, often with circuit boards having the appropriate sockets and edge connectors that make it a cinch to connect things together. The USAF SAGE (Semi-Automated Ground Environment) systems provided the ability to display, analyze, and share tracking data from the Distant Early Warning (DEW Line) radars in the Northern U.S., Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands, as well as shorter-range radars across the U.S., and directly control anti-aircraft missiles and interceptor aircraft via their autopilot. SAGE was in operation until the last station was decommissioned in 1984, but the U.S. had ceased production of vacuum tubes by the mid 1970s. So, through CIA-established front companies in Western Europe, tubes were purchased from commercial manufacturers in Warsaw Pact countries, especially Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria. EPrey is the usual route to find these suppliers, many of whom are also in Russia. That's hilarious when you consider that the local Communist group in Berkeley met in a rented space above Al's place (he was a WW-II vet), that the FBI monitored closely through the 1970s. As Russian comdeian Yakov Smirnov said, "In United States, you watch television, but in USSR, television watches _you_." Now, Amazon, Google, Apple, etc., provide that service to the highest bidders, at least in terms of where you surf the web, what you search for and buy, and so forth, if not outright "monetize" your Alexa/Echo, Hangouts, FaceTime, and other personal video and audio streams. All the Best, Jim KJ7JHE On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 2:47 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > Will ANY remain? > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com >