Posted on 09/15/2014 8:19:49 PM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
Gentlemen and gentlewomen of a certain age harbor fond memories of trips to RadioShack. In days of yore, ham radios and homemade guitar amplifiers would emerge from the mysterious jumble of wires and audio components hawked by this unpretentious electronic retailer.
Whatever one’s view of this American institution with about 27,000 employees, it is near death. On Thursday, RadioShack warned that it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Now all the amateur-grade test equipment is imported, available at Fry's.
Fry's is the righteous replacement for the Radio Shack store. They have everything RS ever had, and more.
dittos! Radio Shack was overpriced but was a last ditch place to buy certain electronic items. It was there when you needed them.
Now you have to buy on ebay and whatever and wait a week to get the item
Hell, had they stuck to their mid range Optimus stereos and expanded their security equipment/camera stuff it might have been enough to keep them viable. But when they went heads up in the cell phone market, it killed them.
There are several component companies thriving online to service the DYI market globally where people still do build things. they could have went that route. But I agree completely. Here, Me, you and few others are likely all thats left that even have an interest much less the ability.
My last trip involved getting a few simple, common caps and resistors, along with shrink tubing and a few associated things. The long time bread and bread and butter of the business. I’m no hardcore wirehead but I can do basic stuff and read a schematic. All I wanted to do was do a simple guitar pedal mod on a Boss DS1, which is a pretty simple job. A nice couple hour project.
All kidding aside, they had the shrink tubing. So there’s that I suppose...
The last time I was in a Radio Shack, looking for a guitar cable, the manager strongly suggested I go instead to a Guitar Center a few miles away for much less expensive options. I had already decided I was leaving empty-handed, so I took his advice.
The modern analogy to yesterday’s components would be things like Arduino boards and parts for projects and robotics. Use that word in a Radio Shack and enjoy the silence. They really screwed up. I get everything online, specifically eBay. To ensure quality if I really need it, maybe Mouser or DigiKey.
It lost its hobbyists.
What are kids' hobbies the last couple of decades? Electronics? Modeling? Games/cards? Collecting? RC? Sewing? Computing? All I see is sports, video games, and now their constant smart phones.
I stopped going to the local Radio Shack because the staff was a bunch of young arrogant people who didn’t know anything about dealing with customers who weren’t young and arrogant.
You mentioned vacuum tubes. My father-in-law has a box full of them that he refuses to part with. Drives my mother-in-law crazy!
Lafayette’s slide began in the late 50s when they moved heavily into importing cheap, low quality electronics from the far east, mainly Japan.
Some vacuum tubes are worth thousands today. Most are worthless.
All the “yuts” in Ferguson, Missouri are deeply saddened as they will not have any locations at which they can steal electronics. Can’t steal from the internet. :(
Lafayette in Merritt Square Mall?
Yes, remember it well!
FIL is in his 80’s. When he was a kid, he hung around with the old guys who were ‘tinkerers’ and built cool stuff. He never got a college degree, but he had practical knowledge and eventually became head of the Research and DEvelopment division of a major corporation. Has 11 patents under his belt.
Consider whats it’s name......... Heathkit.
No one makes their own TV’s any more. Mo one needs a Q multiplier kit or a stereo receiver.
Before he was building computers, Jobs was into hacking the phone system.
The linked article is a review of the book Exploding the Phone by Phil Lapsley, which I highly recommend if you find that sort of stuff interesting.
Lafayette!
Where else could a kid buy an “atom smasher” (their name for a Van de Graaff generator)?
I used to spend hours reading their catalog.
The fact they ask for an address/zip code each time you might spend money in their store was a really big turn off for me. So if I denied giving him that information, would they still have accepted my money? Tandy Corp is fallen off it’s pedestal. Years ago Zales and Levines, and Radio Shack were filled with customers. Could 60+ years have made that difference? As the path taken by 7-11 (7 days a week we open up at seven; and seven days a week we’re there till 11), they fade away and cease to exist.
I remember the computers. My son is now a professional IT guy as a collateral job to his primary engineering function. He learned his first computer skills on a Tandy Color Computer. I think I still have several issues of Hot CoCo somewhere.
I purchased a TRS 80 model III for my office. I couldn’t get it to work for about three days and went back and learned they left out the “boot disk”. What the hell is a boot disk. Whatever it was it made it work. I visited a Radio Shack down in Florida and they had a data base program. Somehow out local stroe didn’t have one. That opened new great doors for our glazing business. We got a spread sheet and that really made a difference. It would calculate glass sizes from opening sizes so quick it made your head swim.
I remember endless discussions with others about the relative merits of this computer over that computer. I bought the TRS 80 rather than the Apple primarily because the key pad had the 10 digit key pad like the calculators.
Ahh but then IBM came along and the PC dominated the world. Such is life
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