Anyone remember those from the mid-1970s? Sadly the company has turned into all optics (lenses and the like), but when I ordered from them regularly, they had quite the variety of stuff. I got my very first computer (an assemble-it-yourself job called JR-01) and this great thing for weather forecasting (had a specialized circular sliderule to generate codes for the forecast and a codebook to explain the codes), and quite a number of other geeky items. The reason I bring it up now is I’d like to get that weather forecaster, and maybe just reminisce while thumbing through the catalog online.
So, anyone have any better luck than I did searching for the things online?
I remember some of the computer stuff and some very early Edmund computer articles. But, most of the Edmund remnants in my garage are optics - sheets of polarizing material, lenses, frosted glass. Was the computer a Sinclair?
Absolutely remember these catalogs! I used to buy from them and visit their showroom. I still have various optical and non-optical things I bought from the showroom, the one in the back that was surplus, as well as the nicer showroom in front that was not surplus and was more expensive. They originally started as Edmund Salvage and now have evolved into industrial optics and I still buy from them, but more like I buy from Thorlabs et cetera.
I’ve no idea who made the thing. It was not even remotely close to the Tandy COCO 1~3 I got later on in life. For the JR-01, the programming and input were literally rewiring the machine, while the output was a single array of lights giving a binary number. I loved it!
Showroom?! I never knew they had showrooms. I got hooked on the non-optical stuff while I was in high school in the Washington, DC area. The only optical thing I liked from them was the cool telescope that, IIRC, was the result of a design contest.
They had a showroom in New Jersey. I went there once to pick up a piece of plano-parallel glass. I think optics was it’s original business but they branched out with all the other gizmos and gadgets. I had a couple of those things, and wanted much more.
There’s a great little Wikipedia article about Edmund:
As far as I know the Barrington location was their only location and only consumer store. I haven’t been there in years. Used to be, you’d walk in and it’s a nice shiny store, perhaps expensive looking when you consider the display cases. In a corner off to the left was the Mad Scientist’s room which had some special items in it. I remember a piece of lab glassware the size of a small refrigerator. Then, toward the left rear of the main showroom was the surplus area, with loose items in big plywood bins. There’s a picture of that in the Wikipedia article.
Lots of images of it if you google the following words and phrase"
Oh, I loved the Edmund Scientific catalog. I couldn’t afford almost anything in it, but it set my Jr. Mad Scientist blood racing. He-Ne lasers! Large telescopes!
I did get some jumping discs from them, and a little pocket telescope. But I read those catalogs cover to cover, over and over again.
Another catalog like that was Heathkit. Couldn’t afford any of their kits, but I drooled over the computers, the HERO robot, and the HAM radio gear.
Ahhh, the DIY days of my childhood. Order stuff from the Edmunds catalog to supplement your Heathkit 10-in-1 Electronics Kit… while you made fireworks (with chemicals from the Caseco Pyrotechnics catalog), wearing the down vest that your mom sewed from a Frostline kit for you!
I made my one and only telescope using their optics and their manuals.
I started grinding my own mirror, but that didn’t seem to be making any impact on the glass after running out of compound, so I went and bought a completed mirror.
Me, too, though I never attempted to grind my own mirror. When I was a kid I bought a ready-made mirror from them. That, and the 45-degree reflecting prism were the only things I bought. Everything else was homemade, or scavenged from something else. It was a real low-budget effort. But it worked, and I actually saw the rings of Saturn with it. I think I was maybe 12 or so.
I bought quite a bit of components from Digikey. Think they are geared towards manufacturers (can get stuff in quantities of 1000) but individual sales can happen.