Since #electronics have been on my mind lately, I've been thinking of this ... story? situation? anecdote might be the best fit.
Doing anything every vaguely #niche, like #hobby electronics, in a small #city in the middle of #nowhere used to be quite difficult in terms of obtaining #supplies and #parts. Before the #internet, if you could plan ahead and order enough stuff at once from a big #distributor to make the #shipping charges worthwhile, #catalogs from DigiKey etc were life savers.