When I lived in Texas in the late 90s, the First Saturday Sale was a huge computer related flea market covering multiple blocks of parking lots in downtown Dallas. It wasn't primarily for electronics, but you could get a lot of stuff there. They certainly didn't turn away the electronics and ham people.

It was when people were still using phone modems, and I recall that every time a new speed came out, all of the businesses swapped them out immediately. On a couple of occasions, I was able to get a previous generation modem for like 5 bucks from some guy who had a trailer heaped with them.

Also, there were piles of Apple Macs shortly after System 7.5 came out. I barely had to buy any new computer gear during the time I lived there.

Weather-wise, I preferred winter, because during the summer, it got really sweaty and stinky.

Once at an MIT swapfest, I paid someone half price for a camera to “hold it” because I didn’t have the entire amount they wanted in cash, and they wouldn’t take Venmo. I never got the camera or any money back because he basically gave me the run around. Silly me believes in being virtuous in casual transactions.

Sorry that's happened. How long ago? Do you think there's a chance it might still be straightened out?

BTW, you probably know this, but just for HN: some of the vendors and shoppers will be calibrated a bit differently than average, so there might be miscommunication, or awkwardness, or different conventions, to get past.

A few years ago at Swapfest, a friend and I met up there, as vendors were packing up, and one of the vendors in the parking garage was having trouble starting their truck, dead battery. So, maybe because my friend thought the vendor might be averse to asking for help, she quietly went and asked another nearby vendor with a vehicle, if they could give a jump, and they cheerfully did.

(Friend is a former military officer, who had also gone to MIT, and who exemplifies some of the best of tech industry leadership, including Knowing Your Nerds.)

I didn’t mean any shade at MIT, or the MIT swapfest—I was just sharing a story. I also met some great people there, and bought some cool stuff, so I’d highly recommend people in the area to attend it at least once. Regarding trying to sort the camera thing, it’s long past now, and I don’t care. Maybe they really needed that money.

UK, near Luton, Dunstable Downs Radio Club car boot sale https://dunstabledownsradioclub.org/bootsale/

I used to live in the Boston area as a kid and dad used to take me to loads of ham radio swap meets in the city. I loved rummaging around the stuff and finding cool things to try to use with my Commodore 64 (even in the 80s, ham swap fest's had a lot of computer gear proliferating) I really miss the format but I just haven't seen them around for years (decades?) at least in my part of the world...

Here is a way to find hamfests:

https://www.arrl.org/hamfests-and-conventions-calendar

Note I have found searching by city and state is broken. You need to search by zipcode.

Unfortunately I'm not only not in the BOS area, I'm not even in the US anymore. Though the RSGB probably has a similar listing... If I get my license I might even find out directly :)

That’s where I got the idea! I was blown away at how cool that event was, I emailed with their team to get some tips for it as well.

The coolest part was someone brought a Gemini lander to sell!

* Silicon Valley -- Electronics Flea Market, https://www.electronicsfleamarket.com/

I started going to these last year and they’re great. People selling rackmount servers off the beds of pickups, bins full of spinning rust HDDs, everything you need to make a garbage homelab.

The first one of 2025 is on March 9th.

Toronto Hacklab has an occasional thing they call Junk Independence Day

We need one of these in Austin!