Where else could you simultaneously purchase through-hole transistors, a gaming motherboard, a 19" rack, a leafblower, a loudspeaker disguised as a plastic rock, pornography, a taser, a sandwich and a decent cup of coffee while surrounded by fiberglass cowboys and aliens... sad to see

While attending the University of Arizona in Tucson in the early 90s, I got very confused by posts on Usenet talking about buying computers at Fry’s. You see, the Fry’s grocery store chain still existed in Tucson at the time, so I could not figure out where a grocery store would stock computers!

Needless to say when I moved to the Bay Area after college graduation, I wasted no time visiting the closest Fry’s Electronics. For me, that was the original Fremont location - the one in an office park off Mission Blvd with the space theme inside. I never see that location mentioned any more. It was closed after Fry’s bought the Incredible Universe stores and they moved the Fremont Fry’s to the IU store on Auto Mall Parkway.

I remember when Fry's opened in the Portland, OR area (actually ~15 miles south). It occupied the former Incredible Universe site. We considered it a notable upgrade.

Fry's was like a museum of common and obscure electronic parts, devices and strangely miscellaneous stuff (mundane office supplies, home appliance accessories, etc.). It was definitely the go to place for computer building blocks and related supplies.

It was amazing what could be found there. One really great thing was relay racks and all kinds of shelves and attachments for them. Too good to pass up I bought one. It was used in my office (for webserver and LAN) and still houses my home server.

Like everywhere else Fry's closed unceremoniously. I guess the chain couldn't withstand the growing online competition and waning interest in desktop machines. Too bad they had to go, now and then it would be so convenient if neighborhood purveyors of "exotic" electronics were still around.

One of the things I loved most about Fry's was that clearly an engineer designed their checkout line. It's the only retail checkout line I've ever seen that fully embraced queueing theory.

They had one long line that everyone got into, and a load balancer up front that would direct you to an open check stand, and at least at the store I went to, in their hayday they had 30 registers open at once!

Drooling over PC part reviews in magazines that I could never afford, checking the weekly printed Fry's ad in the local paper to find deals, convincing my parents to drop me at the electronics-nerd-utopia for a lazing weekend afternoon - "Won't you get bored?" . . . "No Mom!"

Iconic building, nostalgic time.