Posted on 03/09/2017 8:12:10 PM PST by Trump20162020
U.S. electronics chain RadioShack Corp filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday for the second time in a little over two years, faced with a challenging retail environment and an unsatisfying partnership with wireless provider Sprint Corp.
The Chapter 11 filing comes after RadioShack, owned by General Wireless Operations Inc, tried to revitalize its business by co-branding stores with the wireless carrier in an effort to compete against their largest rivals.
General Wireless, which acquired the RadioShack brand in 2015, listed assets and liabilities in the range of $100 million to $500 million in the U.S. bankruptcy court for the Delaware district.
(Excerpt) Read more at aol.com ...
Mmm. I've been catching-up on my DVR'd episodes from the past season of Halt and Catch Fire, and now all these vintage PC photos - it's a bit of a nostalgia overload. :-)
I beg your pardon - I was just about to drop in there to get more solder for my next Heathkit super heterodyne kit project! Jeez!
Then head over to Tandy Leather and make yourself some moccasins.
Me I hate going there if they do have what you need its crazy overpriced I found having more projects and Amazon prime eliminated almost all radioshack trips Fry’s too
Have you been in a Fry’s? I should love that place but it’s a bit creepy. What’s with all the Alice in wonderland motif
I just discovered a roof leak absolutely soaked and ruined my collection of many RS catalogs.Memory Lane won’t be the same.
Agreed. Radio Shack went away from all the goodies that used to draw me to them. I’d almost kill to lay my hands on a couple more of their Radio Shack made-by-Ungar soldering irons.
That’s a good point, about the parts sellers on eBay. There is some pretty serious volume there. But, a problem with the Chinese sellers is variable quality. For example, I bought a few micro-HDMI-to-HDMI adaptors, mini-HDMI-to-HDMI adaptors, and cables from two sellers with very good feedback. All the parts from one seller work fine, but from the other, all the mini-HDMI-to-HDMI adaptors (which I actually needed more) don’t work. Checking, some pins do not connect through. This seller will hopefully refund me, but, sometimes it’s a hassle. I could order from a US seller, but the parts are generally from the same sources. My closest “brick and mortar” supplier, Gateway Electronics, is a 3-1/2 hour drive away.
Incidentally, I am surprised no one has mentioned another major online seller, MCM Electronics. I’ve bought a lot of “goodies” from them over the years. Most of their items are good, but, their speakers (with some exceptions) are junk and usually the specs are WAAAYYY off. Recently, customers discovered at least some of their RCA patch cords are not even shielded. 18 ga. speaker wire turned out to be Copper-clad Aluminum, not copper. (Much higher resistance per foot.) And so on. More worrisome is that recently they have been having many fewer “deals”, and, worse yet, they can’t seem to keep half of their regular items in stock. This results in orders where small parts trickle in — ok for a hobbyist, perhaps, but deadly if one is building custom stuff for, say, a commercial enterprise such as a bar / restaurant trying to open on time. And, since MCM offers free shipping on most larger orders, one can literally get over a dozen UPS envelopes or small packages in the month or more following an order. Sometimes they’ll literally ship, say, 56 cents of small parts in an envelope they (MCM) HAD to pay over a dollar to ship. No way can that be sustained...
The sellers are missing some bets, too, which can discourage hobbyists AND pro’s. For example, rack panels can be had inexpensively. But, sensible cabinets to go with them, at similar pricing (for what one gets) are very difficult to find. And, if one does find a useful cabinet, usually there’s a catch: The main chassis “box” is available, but, the cover is not, is a common situation.
Now, here’s a “go back in time” question:
Have any FReepers built any Dynaco equipment?
Been a few years since I bought from MCM.
Mouser and Digikey have gone from snail like service to lightning fast service over the last few years, and on some things even beat the price of eBay Sellers.
I’ve got a 1-owner Commodore 64.....hehehehehe (at least I think I still have it). Original box, too! Gotta be worth 1 million dollars, lol.
I was there about 1 month ago. I bought a USB thumb drive extension cord, this 1’ cord plugs into side of tv so you can plug USB thumb drive in front of tv.
Well said! Altex is one of our local suppliers. Radio Shack abandoned their hobbiest 15 or more years ago and forced many of their smaller owners out of business with an 'improved' marketing strategy that cost thousands just in changing colors, carpets, signage, etc., while ignoring customer demands for actual electronic components. Some genius decided they could make a fortune selling the same products you can find at hundreds of other local retailers or direct from China for half the cost. Really?
Not entirely good.
The crappy deals that we made with China makes it possible for them to ship from China to the US for practically no money. For example, it is possible to buy items for a dollar on eBay, and have them shipped from China to the US for free. It would cost about $15 to ship the same item from the US to China.
Add to that they use basically slave labor, have no environmental regulations to hinder them, and have a government that understands that it is in their strategic national interest to destroy global competition.
Of course that makes it possible for hobbyists to play with cheap electronic gadgets from China, but it also means that large segments of the vast electronics industries that used to exist in the US are gone forever.
They do have some “Make” stuff, but it is priced about 5X what you pay elsewhere.
Half the time I go in I leave empty handed because they don’t have something really common, or if they have it you pay the same price for one as a pack of ten elsewhere.
You would be amazed:
Yes, I have built several. Excellent performance at a reasonable price, but low quality PC boards.
A bit of movie trivia...in Animal House, the pot party scene at the professor's apartment, the audio equipment is Dynaco.
I do. As a Ham radio operator there is always something in progress on the electronics bench.
+1
I was one of the first customers in the first Fry’s. Had a love hate relationship with them for decades. At one point they were just completely screwed up and almost augered in. Seem to have their act together now.
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