@PlasmaHH I too was wondering where did the term "street price" arrive into decent peoples' vocabulary from. Could be from illicit trade. Could be from Wall Street too.
@NickAlexeev almost every time I walk through certain areas I get asked like "wanna buy some shit?" and I just imagined the same kind of people asking "hey, wanna buy some fpga?"
@PlasmaHH It was kind of like that in the Soviet Union: electronic components were not freely sold to hobbyists, any commercial activity not sanctioned by the government was illegal.
[screenshot from the Russian 1973 comedy movie "Иван Васильевич меняет профессию"]
@PlasmaHH By the way, some time in the 2000s, two or three of the creatives behind the Sesame Street have admitted that the endeavor was fueled by cocaine. I can't seem to find that news blurb, where I have read that.
@NickAlexeev My next-door cubicle neighbor was just yesterday telling a story about using a tube from a street lamp to erase EPROMs in 1980's Soviet Union.
And he wasn't using that as a hobbyist --- even working for legitimate state enterprises, it sounds like a huge amount of bodging had to be done to get things done.
@ThePhoton The soviet era had formally ended in 1991. I started to tinker with electronics in 1992 in Moscow. The sourcing situation have not yet improved by then (at least on the hobbyist level it haven't). Salvage was easier to do, because security was softer overall.
@ThePhoton The first serious improvement was Mitino Market (panoramic video from 2001). Basically, it was a bazaar. You would buy transistors like spices.
You could also buy a fully functional OrCAD (AutoCad, whatever you fancy) for $40.
@NickAlexeev When I was in China in 2006 or so, the price of any software (any) was something like $10 per CD. If the software came on 1 CD, $10. If it came on 2 CD's, $20, etc. (And I may be mis-remembering, maybe it was 10 kuai).
