MOST retailers would recoil in horror at the thought of keeping unsold products on their shelves for 30 years. Not Halted Specialties Company. It’s willing to hold on to a few thousand vacuum tubes just in case the right buyer happens to wander into the store, be it this decade or the next.

For close to 50 years, Halted has supplied the do-it-yourself electronics enthusiasts so common in Silicon Valley with just about anything they could imagine. Like the many electronics stores once populating the area, Halted helped turn entrepreneurs’ inklings into huge success stories. These days, however, Halted caters more to hobbyists than titans of industry because much of the fundamental computing manufacturing has moved to Asia.

Halted, in Santa Clara, Calif., is one of the last of a dying breed  a rough-around-the-edges electronics wonderland meant for people who just can’t find what they need at stores like Best Buy and Fry’s Electronics.

“It’s a little discouraging sometimes,” said Bob Ellingson, who co-owns Halted with Matt Dunstan. “You don’t see the start-up companies  the guys coming in that are setting up a bench. And they need to get pliers and cutters and soldering irons and solder. It’s not like it was.”