Remembering Radio Shack
Posted by freedomforall 10 years, 6 months ago to Business
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While we're very happy to have you in the Gulch and appreciate your wanting to fully engage, some things in the Gulch (e.g. voting, links in comments) are a privilege, not a right. To get you up to speed as quickly as possible, we've provided two options for earning these privileges.
We had a TRS-80 Model III. It was sort of a POS for a Z80 computer, but it worked. I coded the quadratic equation on it many times, including the check for sqrt(-1)!
I bought my brother floor standing Realistic speakers in high school. They were great. He had them until he was like 30!. The Realistic Mach One speakers remain desirable. Parts Express still sells replacement drivers.
Recently, I grabbed a power MOSFET from there to replace the fried one my car's variable speed fan drive. ~$2.29 vs ~$400 for the OEM part!
So sorry they lost their way. Seems to me they couldn't bridge the gap from component-oriented electronics 70's to the present modular Ardiuno, Rapsberry PI robotics, etc. Their sales force will have a real problem with that transition now. They should not get into a fight with consumer electronics retailers. This is saturated. They should drop one level lower to the educational and DIY crowd and stay there. Perhaps those DIY guys with initiative just buy stuff online.
- Probably good insight here. The Shack should have aggressively moved into the online space for education and components a long time ago.
Probably hard for their business model - since it would compete with all their independent storeowners.
So it goes the way of other firms that could not manage the inevitable transitions in business (especially the technology space).
Sears and JC Penny are trying now. Do you recall that Sears once sold houses?
GE is another interesting one, from power and lighting, to steam then gas turbines, to a bank (under that idiot Welch), and recently buying ConverTeam to get back into electric machines and power converters, which were a core GE technology, that became technically weak and expensive over time.
They're not the only brick-and-mortar store to be going under because they couldn't adjust to the online marketplace, just one of the more popular ones.
"Raspberry Pi 2 is now on sale for $35 (the same price as the existing Model B+), featuring:
A 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU (~6x performance)
1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM (2x memory)
Complete compatibility with Raspberry Pi 1
Because it has an ARMv7 processor, it can run the full range of ARM GNU/Linux distributions, including Snappy Ubuntu Core, as well as Microsoft Windows 10."
http://www.geek.com/chips/the-raspberry-...
Unfortunately the learning curve on the IDE is high, and it does not hand hold at all, being for professional developers. So I was looking for something to accomplish my goals in a more user friendly platform. Don't think Ardiuno has the processing power. Raspberry PI doesn't have the I/O, unless there is a daughter card I haven't found.
Cell phones and other means of communication put the amateur radio operator out of business and they no longer needed to buy parts and I believe this help further the impending death of Radio Shack, Inc.. So 88's, from; dit da da, da dit dit dit, dit dit dit da da, da dit da, dit, dit dit da dit. 73's. CQ.
Please accept this 'Post Card' as confirmation that your signal has reached 41.1469N 73.3990W on Sat Jan 07, 2015 14:54 EDT :^)
Hardware: HP xw8600 Xeon 3.33Ghz, 8Gb RAM, 5.2TB RAID, 50Mbps down x 15 up.
Best!
I wish I could reply with my amateur call sign, but I don't remember it, and I think my commercial 1st class has long expired. I was never able to copy code at more than 5 wpm -- I could translate, but I simply couldn't *hear* the difference in the tones; still can't, but this was a lot easier because I could read it!
Tnx Lee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RadioShack...
Seems that Tandy purchase both companies and eventually ended up with the lone Radio Shack name.
I still remember the stores of the 70's where the staff could actually answer most of your electronics queries. Now days, they can maybe figure out what battery you need for your cellphone.
I'll have to see what effect the corporate bankruptcy is going to do to our local franchise outlet (like most of them are, out here).
Used to use the RS story at 167 Washington Street in Boston as my parts bin. They had knowledgeable staff AND a tube tester better than the crummy one at the local drugstore.
I knew the end was near for RS when I saw their attempted re-branding to "The Shack." The boat is sinking. Quick! Let's hoist up a new flag!
Well enough of my boring talk. Tnx for your attention.
I remember Radio Shack for its Science Fair department, where you could build simple breadboarded circuits and learn how circuits worked. You could even buy their 100-in-1 project set, with instructions on 100 different products with permanentlyl mounted components. The only other company offering comparable products was the Heath Company (Heathkit).
Does no one build their own circuits anymore? Is that the problem--no more use for analog circuits?
This goes against independence of spirit. And it bespeaks a woeful failure in American education. Where are the students who used to flock to Radio Shack to buy the kits to build those projects I mentioned? Nowadays, no one even takes an interest in it.
John Galt wouldn't let Radio Shack die. By his inspiration, the next generation of achievers would also flock to it to buy the latest components. Why, they probably would derive from his lecture series on theoretical physics. I could see him producing a line of parts for anything from transister radios to his trademark electrostatic motor.
A part of life in the Gulch we didn't think about, and now are about to lose.
Galt would have let Radio Shack die, because it hasn't been what we think of as Radio Shack in a very long time. It had been hollowed out by the second-raters.
As I pointed out further down in the thread, contact me if you need anything in old electronics or computers. There is a Gulcher and former business partner of mine who bought out a used electronics/computers store from another friend of mine. A golf hole sponsor sized sign has Who Is John Galt in the familiar script proudly outside the entrance. Also next to the entrance is a sign saying WARNING - 20000 Ohms with a WIJG Post-It-Note taped next to it. His shop will be among the first when Atlantis debuts.
The brand was TANDY, and they had lots of DIY kits.
I guess that this generation doesn't build things...just consumes things. We are a disposable age, and old farts like me are next!
Sorry to see another landmark brand go.
We can laugh, however, it's too close to reality for the laugh to be too hearty.
When I arrived, all I saw was an empty building with the Radio Shack sign removed. Another business has moved in since.
I know where another Radio Shack is but at an inconvenient location in my west of Birmingham satellite cities area.
Not local at all, providing it is still there.
Oh, it's also in a neighborhood where you should pack a pistol.
At least in California we still have Fry's, for now.
things from RS every month or so. . I need a part
for an experiment and sometimes they have it -- or
something close enough. . so I will resort to online
searches. . bye-bye, RS;;; I will miss you. -- j
switch on it which reversed the phase of one channel.
changed the bass response in my little room which
I called an apartment while in college. -- j
They became a cellphone store over ten years ago.
I worked there in college, and they were already getting away from carrying parts in favor of carrying consumer electronics that they put one of their name brands on and sold for high prices. A few years ago they began carrying Arduino, but they caught on to that trend too late.
I went there a year or two ago to see if i could get a small decoupling capacitor, a part that's typically 40 thousandths of an inch long. All they had were huge ceramics the size of a quarter, which were already old school when I first started playing with electronics at age 10.
It's not that I'm mad at them, but I cannot understand these decisions. Who uses huge ceramic throughmount caps from the 70s? Why not sell existing brands that people recognize instead of developing your own brand and damaging it by putting on various products? Their internal training and their ads for the public betray a contempt for their customer. They had running jokes about why anyone would buy their stuff.
That's not enough to stay in business, I realize..
My point was that the management seemed to have contempt for the customer. The ones I met didn't see themselves as helping someone save two gallons. They saw their customers as idiots.
This is based on my limited sample of meeting a few managers at the store, district, and regional levels.