efaardvark

This video makes me kind of sad.  When I was back in HS and college I used to live in places like Radio Shack that sold basic discrete electronic components.  I would buy electronic gadgets just to take them apart for the parts.  I still absolutely love rendering stuff down and building my own stuff from the pieces.  I would tear through those "warranty void if removed" stickers.  When the 7400 series ICs came out (logic gate arrays) I built my own computer - shifter, ALU, CPU, memory, etc. - out of them just for the heck of it.  (Only 4 bit registers and 45 words of memory, but it could add, subtract, shift, load, store, and run programs.)   When Atmel came out with the AVR series µcontroller I was there with my C cross compiler and an eprom burner connected to my serial port.  This even before "arduino" was a thing.  I am immensely attracted to places like Akihabera that cater to technophiles.  (This is separate to the anime/manga, game, and cosplay culture.  (Anime is fun and entertaining, but electronics/gadgetry is on a whole different level for me.)  If I had seen the wireless LED display I think I would have done the same thing this guy did.. buy it and take it home to take it apart and see how it works.

Unfortunately here in the US there is no place like Akihabara with its dozens of small electronics parts shops, or more importantly the local customer base and hacker culture to support it/them.  We don't even have Radio Shack anymore