Anyone bought from this place before?

[MECHGAMER]

Has anyone bought from tamayatech.com before? are they reliable? I saw that they had a few rare keyboards in stock.

[XMIT]

Hi - This is almost certainly related to your search for a beam spring keyboard. Please, stop spamming the forum by constantly opening new topics. (This isn't GH. Re-opening old threads is more common here.)

You are more likely to get help from other forum members here by: using one topic thread when you are searching for something; typing longer, more thoughtful forum posts; providing more context. We're not your personal concierge. Think about what you can offer back to the community.

With that said: my suggestion with this vendor - and any vendor, if you are not 100% certain of their inventory - is to give them a call, on the telephone, during business hours, to confirm inventory and availability. TamayaTech is an example of a vendor whose online inventory does not always match their real life inventory.

If you end up contacting: please, report on your experience here, this would be helpful to others.

[guk]

Solid advice along with a reasonable reproach, nicely done XMIT!

[MECHGAMER]

Sorry, I didn't realize this about DT.

BTW, I did contact tamayatech about a 5251($99) and a 3278($177), waiting for reply.

[MECHGAMER]

Been awhile since i emailed tamayatech, no reply. I wouldn't recommend this for anyone looking for good customer service. Looking at the reviews, they will most likely make some lame excuse on why they don't answer their phone calls and emails.

Can anyone tell me if asap-purchasing.com is reliable or not? I can't seem to find any reviews on that. They seem to specialize in aircraft and computer parts.

[XMIT]

For many of these places, as I said earlier, you really do need to give them a call. I got my keyboards from what sounded like an 80 year old guy who has been selling surplus equipment for an eternity. Sometimes getting vintage keyboards can be more like searching for car parts in a junkyard, and less like purchasing something from Amazon. You need to get them on the phone to get anything out of them.

Consider, for example, that Web sites are often outdated, and may list no longer current e-mail addresses.

I didn't say this was easy. It's not. You're trying to find a rare part. Expect to have to do some work.

[REVENGE]

Regarding parts "suppliers" such as Tamayatech: note that they are more akin to parts indexers, i.e. they index and dump cataloged part numbers willy-nilly through their websites and parts search engines. Many of the largest places will have giant part number listings, but few have such parts in stock or even possess their own warehouses at all.

[XMIT]

This is consistent with what elecplus has told me. Maybe elecplus can tell us more about how these places work.

The first Displaywriter I found, was through an exhaustive search online for various part numbers. elecplus had a spreadsheet somewhere for interesting IBM part numbers. It is here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1345379426

The interesting part:

IBM PN IBM FRU Description Link
1742700 IBM 3278 https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=60992.0
1742705 IBM 3278
1742720 IBM 3278 compact model
2682678 "Great White" DisplayWriter https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=12104
2683230 "Great White" DisplayWriter wiki/IBM_Displaywriter
2683239 "Great White" DisplayWriter
4423001
4941955 IBM 3278 - German photos-f62/ibm-3278-beam-spring-t8728.html
5147351 3270 layout
5641316 IBM 3101, 315X, etc
7361073 IBM 5251 keyboard
7362149 IBM 5251 keyboard

I purchased one keyboard through a reseller after calling about ten who claimed to have one "in stock". The folks I paid were in Dallas but the keyboard was shipped from Massachusetts.

For the second one, I called the folks in Massachusetts who actually shipped the Displaywriter, and a month later, they found one. Just one, no more.

So it seems to me like there is some sort of dealer-only network of parts, something that is not easily searchable from the Web. It seems like there is some moderately complex network of suppliers and resellers.

Another way to find these sorts of things is to work from first principles. How many were made? Who bought them originally? Where did they go after? I don't know of any other warehouses like Electronics Plus which stock government, military, and other surplus, but those would be my first places to check out.

[OleVoip]

So it seems to me like there is some sort of dealer-only network of parts, something that is not easily searchable from the Web. It seems like there is some moderately complex network of suppliers and resellers

Yes, these live in the "dark web" - google is locked out from their databases. Membership is free for the suppliers, whereas the resellers pay a monthly fee. At least, that's how it works where I once had a trial account.

[XMIT]

Hmm. Maybe I can sign up as a supplier.

[Scottex]

now this is getting interesting

[elecplus]

Membership is not free. Is costs for all accounts. Not everyone listing parts on the web actually stocks them. A lot of these member only lists sell the inventory lists to ecommerce sites, who then have them blind drop shipped. Although sometimes not so very blind, as XMIT found out. You can't list items that are for parts or repair only. Everything has to be tested and cleaned, with at least a 30 day warranty. Really a pain, especially for kbds, when someone orders a PS/2 and then discovers it is not USB, and the seller has to issue an RMA and cover the return costs. I went through this also with 5.25" floppy drives. Do you know how many people tried to put a 360KB floppy drive in an external USB enclosure and have it run off Win 7? Argh!

No, Google is not locked out from their databases. There is one place that will sell to individual end users, and the entire database is open to them. But the price might not be the same for end users as it is for wholesalers.

[elecplus]

Even more interesting. The contact page says they are in San Antonio. I did a Google lookup on the address, and their suite number is registered to the UPS store. So I called the UPS store, and they said they have PO boxes there, so the business could have a PO box there. He could not divulge if TamayaTech had a PO box or not, but one thing is for sure; they do NOT have a physical presence there.

[MECHGAMER]

My model F xt just arrived! will post pics.

[OleVoip]

I was thinking of a different example, netcomponents. No end products, B2B solely. Quite helpful as they direct you to sources who really have the parts they list.
I can imagine that things become much worse as soon as end-users come into play.

[Scottex]

My model F xt just arrived! will post pics.

how did you end up getting it?

[MECHGAMER]

eBay, paid $27 for it

[Muirium]

Can't argue with that. Only $2 more than I got one from Cindy!

[Scottex]

eBay, paid $27 for it

wow dirt cheap
these things only make me want to live in the land of the free ;_;

[XMIT]

I posted this XT keyboard on Great/Interesting Finds from Austin Goodwill and said I would not bid on it. MECHGAMER got it.

[MECHGAMER]

I came across this website called abtronics, and they seemed to have a lot of cool stuff in their inventory, but were based in Russia. I couldn't get them to respond no matter what I did, email, or phone. I emailed them( in russian) 4 days ago and still no response. I called their Canadian Branch and they did not pick up. I might try to call them again on Monday.

[MECHGAMER]

Turns out abtronics did reply, 2 weeks after I sent my request in The keyboard cost $50, but the shipping was $250 from Moscow to Irvine .