A review of the First Saturday Sale

[Randy Rathbun]

A few weeks ago, Bill Barnes and I drove down to Dallas, TX for the First
Saturday Sale, a monthly geek-out deep-inna-harta downtown Dallas. I got
two words to say about this thing: Brrrr! Wow!

We got into Plano (home base for the trip) on Friday night about 8:30.
After some visiting with a friend we headed out about 11:45 PM or so and
headed south. Parking was a cinch - $7 right across the street in a well
lit parking lot with a guy walking around watching the cars for any
suspicious characters. There is quite a bit of free parking around on the
side streets, and lots that do charge are from $5-7.

Now, the reason I say Brrr! is that the First Saturday Sale is held
outdoors in a bunch of parking lots. It starts about 9:00 PM Friday and
runs until about 9:00 AM (yes, overnight!) on the First Saturday of every
month, hence the name, First Saturday Sale (I mention this because I would
hate for someone to drive to Dallas only to find they are a week late or a
week early)

There were deals out the proverbial wazoo to be had. Some of you may have
seen my HP 75D handheld computer at the meeting last night. I bought that
from a guy for $3. Sure, it is a computer from 1984, but $3 is very
decent. We were seeing 8 MB 30 pin simm strips for a dime each. 15 inch
LCD monitors for $225 (did not buy one - they were only showing video on
them and not a desktop, so it was kinda hard to tell if the monitor really
sucked or not) and cases for $150. No, not tower cases - TOWER CASES -
those big rack mount things.

We saw Intergraph workstations for around $200 and some Indys and a box
with O2 on the side of it - the guy selling it said it was just some of
the parts, but if we wanted one he had all the fixin's to put a bunch
together. Drool....

Now, since it was cold as could be, there were not a lot of people.
Probably around 100 vendors and maybe 1500 shoppers. Not too bad
considering it was in the upper 30s to low 40s. I am looking forward to
heading down there in June, July and August of 2002. Warmer weather should
bring out more junk.

The food was, to be honest, very good. This is an important thing at swap
fest type thingys. I got a great big cup of coffee and a huge polish
sausage thing for $4. Both hit the spot.

Don't forget a flashlight.

http://www.sidewalksale.com/first.htm is the place to go if you want more
information.

Also, if you go to this, you have two other places to go after you are
done: Fry's and this big computer junk store in Arlington - they had
fully enclosed rack mount cases with glass fronts for $75 that were
beautiful.

Well worth the trip in my book.

Randy

--------------
Randy Rathbun
randy at randyrathbun.org
nv0u at arrl.net

K2 #1981 QRPARCI #10776 KCQRP #1
NJQRP NORCAL