Radio Shack Radio Sunk

[Jess Ragan]

So, word on the street is that Radio Shack has filed for bankruptcy. Evidently you just can't get by selling phone plans and blue LEDs anymore. You think it will affect the interest in (and subsequently, the prices of) Tandy products like their computer line?

[Rybags]

Doubtful - when did Tandy last make a computer? Early 90s or something?

[AtariLeaf]

Dammit and here I was waiting for the release of the Coco 9.

[Greg2600]

It's too bad but the only business they did anymore were cell phones. Electronics hobbyists are sad, but there's so little of that now. Like Blockbuster, I'm sure the eventual liquidation sales will be completely worthless. Their prices were so high that just to get back down to "web" levels they'd have to discount by 50%, which doesn't happen until the doors are literally closing.

[BigO]

Somewhere around here, I have a banged up scientific calculator that I bought for college in 1984. I think it's living in my wife's quilting studio now.

 

How, I just don't know, but said calculator is running on the original Radio Shack batteries and is still going strong. On that basis, I blame Radio Shack's demise on the vastly superior quality of their products. No repeat business necessary.

[Compumater]

A sad day indeed.

 

Radio Shack was my go to place back in the 80's and 90's. But, little by little they thinned out the stuff I went there for. The Computers slowly vanished, then the car sterio equipment, Then the speakers, and during it all the parts pile kept getting smaller and smaller. I remember they had a few cool ideas in the late 90's. First I think it was called the univerum catalog. it was like 12 huge volumes they had at every store, and you could order all kinds of rare stuff. Heck I bought 3 new Atari 7800 games from it. They also hung onto the Remote control cars a lot longer then I thought they would. I owned two of them and both worked great, but no one uses remote control cars anymore.

 

They did piss me off with the Cell phone antics. bugging the crap out of you everytime you came in. I've never owned a call phone, and hopefully never will, and the look they would give me when I told them that was priceless.

 

I'm sorry to see them go, I bought a set of cordless phone batterys from them about a month ago. It was still the place to get stuff like that in a hurry. I predict that sears, my other favorite store is not to far behind them.

[Goochman]

RS days were numbered when the internet took off. Phones just kept the lights on a little longer. All the electronics stuff they carried is available across 100's of places online. It might not be same day (coming) but 95% of the time you could wait a day or 2 for what RS provided.

 

Sears on the other hand is a joke..............the way they were handled is a great example of greed by an idiot CEO. Turning Sears into a 'hedgefund' so you could rob all the value from it and kill the retail side was a joke, but that is for another thread

[Rhomaios]

Somewhere around here, I have a banged up scientific calculator that I bought for college in 1984. I think it's living in my wife's quilting studio now.

 

How, I just don't know, but said calculator is running on the original Radio Shack batteries and is still going strong. On that basis, I blame Radio Shack's demise on the vastly superior quality of their products. No repeat business necessary.

 

Their batteries are crap now, though.

[BassGuitari]

I remember they had a few cool ideas in the late 90's. First I think it was called the univerum catalog. it was like 12 huge volumes they had at every store, and you could order all kinds of rare stuff. Heck I bought 3 new Atari 7800 games from it.

That's where my first copy of Pitfall! for the 2600 came from. Bought it going on 15 years ago now(!) with a random gift certificate to the mall the RS was in. I had just started out collecting and couldn't believe you could still get those games from Radio Shack.

 

Are there scans of these catalogs anywhere? I'd love to peruse them and reminisce.

[JamesD]

Once Radio Shack stopped producing their own stuff and just became a reseller they were sunk.
I think everything with their name on it was manufactured by someone else after the early 1990s.

[+save2600]

The talk about car stereos reminds me of one of my favorite Radio Shack purchases ever!

 

Mid to late 80's when I bought my first car: Buick Century 4-door boat for only $500 that was freshly painted, looked great and ran well for years. Already had a pair of Sony Tri-axial 6x9's for the rear dying to be installed in whatever car I was going to end up with and yes, I bought car speakers before owning a car - haha!

 

Radio Shack had this DIN mount tape deck with autoreverse, Dolby B&C and pre-out. Deck sounded great out of the box, which was nice I didn't have to putz around with head alignment since I had been used to recording my own misc. tapes using Dolby C. Anyway, so I velcro'd the deck atop a small outboard 2 channel amp that fit perfectly in this plastic console type thing you placed on the floor that held drinks, cassette tapes, coins, etc. Didn't feel like cutting out the original shaft mount radio in the car, so that little catch all was perfect at the time. After a while, retired the tape deck and Velcro'd a portable CD walkman to my amp. hahaha

 

Very few people were *really* into car stereo's like they are now, but those were the days!

[mckafka99]

I'm hoping they will liquidate their Digital P25 scanners

[Clint Thompson]

Radio Shack really should have been dabbling into far more than just cell phone plans. Why the ridded off the computer line doesn't make much sense to me either - oh, right. I always wanted a Tandy Sensation, drooled over owning one when I first caught wind of them, but obviously could never afford such a luxury at the time and then it all just disappeared. They did have some fascinating catalogs though I rarely ever shopped there. I remember a short stint where they were to carry the Atari Jaguar as well but I only ever remember seeing a cardboard display of sorts and that was it, vanished the next time I was there.

 

To be honest, I'm surprised they've managed to hang on for as long as they have. They could have easily extended out into specializing for printer toner/inks and other specialty things but instead wound up doing cell phones and dish packages if memory serves me correctly.

[+frankodragon]

Back in the 80s, there used to be a Radio Shack store in Port Washington, WI. It was run by a husband and wife team, like a mom and pop store. Unlike RS today, most of their revenue was from actually fixing TVs. It's also where I got a few Atari 2600 games like Space Chase and Lost Luggage.

[+nanochess]

Once Radio Shack stopped producing their own stuff and just became a reseller they were sunk.

I think everything with their name on it was manufactured by someone else after the early 1990s.

 

I think you're right.

 

I got once a RCA CD player from Radio Shack because of low price, it doesn't play any extended-play CD, that was precisely the CD (The Cranberries - Treasures) I wanted to hear.

 

And I was disappointed it said Made in China, still at this date it's in its corner gathering dust.

 

Since then I never saw anything really interesting, my local stores removed completely the electronic components, and started selling only TV, cellphones, remote control cars, games and cables, everything more expensive than in other stores.

[Osgeld]

my store has been getting more components and diy wizbang junk in the last few years, maybe why its the only one within a 100 miles now

[Omega-TI]

Are there scans of these catalogs anywhere? I'd love to peruse them and reminisce.

 

 

<< 1983 >>

<< 1984 >> These are my favorite years.

<< 1985 >>

 

And a lot of other years from the 50's into the early 2000's << HERE >> ENJOY THE NOSTALGIA!

[RevEng]

The Battery Club was amazing, and something I'll think back on fondly, along with the cool Forrest Mims books.

 

I found this account by an ex-employee a pretty entertaining and enlightening read. The reason for the big failure of Radio Shack seems to have been poor corporate management.

 

Its worth noting that Radio Shack in Canada was bought out and rebranded "The Source" a while back, and it's doing well by all accounts. One could also envision an alternate timeline where Radio Shack management had some foresight and moved into online retail quicker, leveraging that geek credibility for some decent marketshare.

[jaybird3rd]

I just got back from what will probably be my last visit to Radio Shack. I first noticed last week that my local store had started liquidating, but by the time I went in today, the solder and soldering supplies (which is what I usually bought there) had already been sold. I picked up some electronic parts assortments and an inexpensive soldering station; I'll probably give them as gifts to my nephew when he's a little older. I also walked out with some project enclosures, a new antistatic mat, a few servomotors, and other assorted bits and pieces that would have cost more to buy online because of postage.

 

I'm sad to see Radio Shack go, mainly because it's such a visible sign that the people who are still interested in servicing their own computers and electronics, and in building their own projects in a hands-on, do-it-yourself way, are in a dwindling minority. Then again, most of those people had long since moved on from Radio Shack: by the time the end came, that store was a pale imitation of the cool place that I remember from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. I'm just glad that we still have component vendors like Mouser and project-oriented sites like SparkFun, and communities like AtariAge for getting in touch with like-minded hobbyists.

[fujidude]

I'm sad to see Radio Shack go, mainly because it's such a visible sign that the people who are still interested in servicing their own computers and electronics, and in building their own projects in a hands-on, do-it-yourself way, are in a dwindling minority.

 

As more and more electronics are made in low wage countries like China, and new technologies make manfucaturing them ever more efficient, one of the big incentives to servicing/repairing things has all but dissappeared.

[+nanochess]

I remember the old catalogs, I liked specially the pages about games, made me to dream about having several games, specially King Quest 2

[AtariLeaf]

The Battery Club was amazing, and something I'll think back on fondly

 

[+Atarius Maximus]

I worked at Radio Shack over the summer between my undergrad years and when I started graduate school in 1994. It was fun, I learned everything there was to know about everything in the store and was one of their best salespeople. I still didn't make much money, and certainly remember how cheap they were as a company. The manager was not allowed to send returned items back and we were never allowed to give a discount on open box items... I lost so many easy sales because of that. I've always been really into music & recording, so I sold a whole lot of stereo equipment, speakers, mixers, and car stereos. Some of their speakers were really nice and reasonably priced for their quality. Back in '94 most of their stereos were the 'Optimus' brand and were re-branded items from lower-end companies like Pioneer, and the computers we sold were not radio shack branded at all, they were all from an early 90's computer company called AST. The markup was so high I don't think I ever sold a single computer. Fond memories either way, I'll miss them.

[Osgeld]

I did a couple holidays as temp help, not sales but stock boy when I was younger ... the guy who ran the place, Gene was there from when I was still holding my moms hand till retirement a couple years ago, apparently he didnt have too much grievance and his replacement, Brian has his gripes like any cog in a wheel but is genuinely worried about what to do next.

[Brian O]