"Hello Computer! I need the formula for transparent aluminum."
I remember the old days when they used to sell almost every little doo-dad you could ever need.
becoming just another cell phone HQ was a stupid move, really really stupid.
They need to go back to their roots.
CHANGE YOUR NAME!!!! Who needs a “Radio Shack”??
No wonder they are going broke.
When Allied they were pretty good. When Tandy took over it was never the same.
"Hello Computer! I need the formula for transparent aluminum."
One equivalent now is raspberry pi and RS needs to have raspberries and raspberry accessories (displays, etc) filling the long wall of every store. Sell the SW at $5 for a disk, but get people in to buy the hardware. There are always new things that will come out to hook up and RS needs to sell every single one of them.
But Shack does not have the stuff that Best Buy has in it. We have both near by and the BB is five times as large as the Shack store.
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Haven’t really seen how Radio Shack has stayed in business since the advent of online shopping for almost anything. I have set foot in a RS exactly once in the last 5 years or so, and that was just to see if they still sold cassette tape repair kits. They don’t - found ‘em online though.
One of the great things about being a “nerd” in Fort Worth was going to one of the Radio Shack warehouses that were open to the public and buying their surplus items dirt cheap.
They had occasional tent sales at the one on Terminal Road, but the stuff was always available inside the store there, which was at the front of and attached to the warehouse.
They always had computer stuff, antennas and radios, stereos, phones, intercoms and more. Sadly, they closed that store about two years ago.
Around 1975, I got one of my first radios from that place. It was one of those "multi-band" radio (as they called them back in the day) that had AM and FM but also a "weather" band, a "police" band and something called "SW" which I eventually learned stood for shortwave.
There were a couple other bands you could switch to as well, I think "Air Traffic Control" was one of them in which you could spend hours listening to some disembodied voice through the crackle of static say something like "Four one-niner, you are cleared for landing on runway four right, maintain heading of one-zulu and proceed according to flight plan" - or something like that.
Weather band was a joke. Just a bunch of beeps and whistles and some monotone voice telling you the 4pm temperature in Chatham, Hyannis and on Martha's Vineyard. Even though it was now 6:30.
Don't think I ever picked up anything on the Police band. Had to purchase a separate police scanner for that. Also available at Radio Shack. Then you had to buy "scanner crystals" separately to get the really good stuff.
I do remember that multi-band radio taking 8 size-D batteries and it really sucked those batteries down quick so you basically just had to plug it into an outlet. Than you had that long retractable "whip" antenna that invariably bent after a while. Then it eventually just broke, forcing you to stick a coat hanger down in there.
So anyway, as we moved into the 1980s, the Radio Shack started stocking computers (before most people even thought about getting a computer for the home) and those hand-held electronic "video" games which was basically a bunch of blips chasing each other around on a 3-inch screen which you had to move around with a few buttons at the bottom. By the time you figured out how to play the game, it was time to change out the 9-volt battery.
Back in those days, the Radio Shack people made you give your address and phone number whenever you bought something. Even if it was just that 9-volt battery so that you could play your "blip" hand-held football game.
I'm not kidding either. It would take almost 5 minutes to check out of the store because they would invariably whip out that carbon form and take all your personal information so that you could be on their mailing list. Didn't matter if you told them you gave your information last time you in the store. They had to each and every time get that carbon form filled out, with the white copy going on file, the pink copy going to corporate and the yellow copy going who knew where.
Radio Shacks used to always be in malls too. Back when the mall was actually a place that people wanted to hang out. You had your Orange Julius, the movie theaters, a "gift shop" that had all kinds of racy items with swear words on them or images of half-naked women. This was before the Internet and before cellphones. Instead, they had banks of payphones everywhere which gum-snapping teens would use to call their parents to come pick them up (by the video game arcade where people would put quarters into machines that played Space Invaders and Pacman while songs by Journey and REO Speedwagon played over the loudspeakers).
Should be good for another 200 point rise in the DOW.
I wanted to buy a radio for a friend this past summer. I went to the local RadioShack to see what they had. The employee looked at me like I was nuts. He said that he didn’t think they ever sold radios, just parts for radios. I left. Ended up buying an Internet radio on Amazon. Time for a name change I guess.
It’s really hopeless for RS. It was always a hobbyist store for competent electronics folks, and one of the first places to sell computers. With very few exceptions, this young generation doesn’t build crap anymore and has no need for a store like that. Why bother trying to fix a circuit board for something when you can just buy a brand new Chinese version of practically anything for cheap? And there’s nothing RS carries now that you can’t get anywhere else.
Where will the hobbyists go now, other than the Web?
Where will the hobbyists go now, other than the Web?
-PJ
