Tangentially related story: On my first ever visit to Akihabara, back in the autumn of 2000, I saw a used SGI workstation (I think an Octane, it was rounded and kind of a teal blue) on sale in a really cool electronics shop. They had all kinds of other great stuff -- a big mixing board from a studio, television cameras, rgb monitors, stuff like that. The price was not that crazy but I was a broke college student, so I had to be satisfied with just the coolness of having seen it. So I moved on to the shops with robot parts and old arcade boards and stuff.
Akihabara is still a fun place to visit, but it seems to have been taken over entirely by the Otaku culture. Otakudom has always been a part of Akihabara, but now it seems like that's all there is. I miss the old Akihabara and the DIY/tinkerer spirit of it.