RIP Radio Shack

[begreen]

This will blow you away. Everything in this 1991 Radio Shack ad is in a modern smartphone.

 

[bag of hammers]

I do remember the free battery card. You got a free battery once a month when you visited the store.

Yeah, I remember that. Recall going into their store and messing around with the Realistic stereo systems - receivers with touch sensitive tuning etc. Saved up to buy one of their walkie talkies - came with 2 channels, option to buy more crystals to change the frequency. It was kinda unique and a pretty cool store once upon a time. Now "the source" is pretty much uninteresting.

 

[bobdog2o02]

I think their political backings in the late 90's really hit hard, in addition to the point that was already stated of declining parts stock, have led to this ending.

 

[jharkin]

This will blow you away. Everything in this 1991 Radio Shack ad is in a modern smartphone.

View attachment 153217

Love the Tandy 1000. We had an even earlier model T1000, it was a 7MHz 8086 (the add is an 80286)

 

[blades]

I worked for Allied Electronics from the 60's through the take over of Allied by Tandy corp. Which came about due to a Gov. forced break up of LTV. Then worked for RS until about 77 as a manager + some other corp. duties. Did pretty well by me untill 77 when 3 things occurred , the Oil crunch (real or contrived- we will never know), a massive downturn in the economy, and most importantly to me at the time was a restructuring of corp. pay scales. The restructuring and economy left me with no choice but to leave and pursue alternate course of employment. That said the stock I had in the company paid for my first home. It was a pretty good ride- sad to see what has become of it over the years. I was shocked the last time I was in one , couple years back , at what it had become- not much more than a cell phone shop. Employees with no electronics knowledge ect. what a shame. Charles D. Tandy really worked at putting it all together , private branded and in a lot of cases equipment made in our own sister companies which allowed for very tight cost controls. Most of it was a very good value for the price - Actually a better value for the market share we were engaged in.

 

[RedFridge]

I'll miss Radio Shack.

I remember in high school purchasing a pair of realistic water cooled home speakers.

Those speakers were the loudest speakers I have ever owned.
Also purchased my first cassette tape Walkman there. Went straight to tower records and bought my first cassette tape.

Foreigner 4 it was.

Getting old.

 

[Swedishchef]

Canada lost RS quite some time ago. They converted into electronics stores selling TVs, cellphones, etc. It's called The Source. No more electronic components per se.

I think part of the problem is our "throw it away" generation/society that we are in. Who fixes TVs anymore? Appliances? Not many people have the knowledge to do so. If your stove/oven goes on the blink, it's $500 for the motherboard + service call + labour. A new stove/oven costs $850.

RIP

Andrew

 

[begreen]

Call me old skewl, but I bought a replacement board for our $1800 Electrolux convection oven to have as a spare. It cost $129. If it goes I will be replacing the part and not the oven. I don't like this disposable society chit.

 

[woodgeek]

I just had a board go bad in my HPWH that was under warranty. They fedex'ed me a new board for free, and I was up and running in 24 hours.

 

[jharkin]

Call me old skewl, but I bought a replacement board for our $1800 Electrolux convection oven to have as a spare. It cost $129. If it goes I will be replacing the part and not the oven. I don't like this disposable society chit.

The control board on our $2xxxx GE Profile range went bad within the first year. After the tech came out to replace it and a bunch of other things under warranty I kept the parts so I can reference the ## and order it myself the next time it happens... Which sadly we know it will now.

 

[begreen]

A lot of modern stoves and wall ovens are failing due to not protecting the electronics from the heat. Old ovens had no electronics. I researched this before buying our wall oven several years back. One of the saddest cases was with a very good company, Thermador that is usually known for good equipment. The worst case scenario is with some of the high end peudo-commercial ovens from Viking etc.. My SIL has a 5yr old unit that had a board failure a couple months ago. I think she lost the broiler function. Guess what, they don't make a replacement part. This is a $4000 oven and you are SOL when anything proprietary for this model goes! If you want to fry the electronics quickly on these units, just run a few self-cleaning cycles.

Our oven rated well and I can see it has a pretty good heat shielding and venting to protect the electronics. However, one digit on the temperature readout is now missing a segment. No biggie, but that's when I got the replacement board. The oven is about 6 yrs old now and doing fine otherwise.

 

[TreePapa]

Radio Smack (my pet name for them for a long time) hasn't been Radio Shack of old for a long time. The thing I've bought from them most, recently, is "odd size" batteries (button batteries, etc.). Now I get those at Fry's, for the most part.

 

[EJL923]

Could be safe to say that a big reason for the shacks demise come to two things, the modern smartphone and advanced electronics. I am a very technical person, but with most new appliances in my house if something electrical goes bad, its usually out of my league. Even some appliance techs nowadays it seems they are guessing at a fix.

oh, and Amazon, they wont be happy till they make every retailer a moot point. I am guilty. Though i do make a conscious decision to buy local if prices are the same or slightly above.

 

[SXIPro]

I always hated shopping at Radio Shack, even as a kid. Stores were/are so outdated and they carried pretty crappy products. As far as worrying about spending $4.00 on shipping ordering a 36 cent part online, it's still far cheaper compared with gas/time spent driving to a dumpy store in a strip mall and picking it up.