Radio Shack Stores Are Back! Let's take a tour of one.
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2024
- Radio Shack retail stores are making a comeback all across the USA. In this video I tour a Radio Shack store in Riverton, Wyoming. I also discuss visits to other new stores, my history with Radio Shack and the Radio Shack web site. I really missed being able to just walk into a Radio Shack store and buy the parts I needed for various projects, but thank goodness, the Shack is back! Please visit my blog at www.mdpub.com for more info.
I hope they return. I miss being able to buy wire and electronic components while actually looking and holding them in my hand instead of relying on maybe's through internet pics.
Micro center got better overall selection on everything usually on hand.
@@imrickjames7012 There are fewer Micro Centers than there are Radio Shacks. Count yourself lucky if you live within an hour of Micro Center. Heck, for that matter, in the same state as a Micro Center.
@@imrickjames7012 DigiKey or Mouser
Yea, I quit tinkering when my Fry's became an Amazon.
I hope they bring us what we want instead of just a phone store with childrens toys and overpriced electronics like they were.. it's 2022 bring back DIY kits, learning kits, components. we have a lot of young people that want to learn repair and other electronic hobbies just give them the resources to pursue those things at a fair price.
I managed a radio shack. One of my keys to success was knowing all about the diodes and capacitors and electronics. Studying the new products and passing along to my team. No customer left our store without getting the help they needed. Know the products you sell!
I went to RadioShack for a job interview. Before I was called into the office, I was browsing and ended up helping a customer with his A/V wiring. Needless to say, the interview never happened. I was hired instantly. I worked for RadioShack for 11 years, working my way up to manager and got out about 2 years before all hell finally let loose. I witnessed, and even predicted, the downfall of the company about 4 years before it started to happen. I saw the signs of a failing national corporation that was focusing on the money instead of the customer's needs.
Lotsa luck there.. Once they went to the TRS80 and didn't even know what CP/M was I gave up on RS.
I have to learn all this stuff online. 1 item at a time instead of a trained pro like you in town knowing product. I really really miss the shack. They had an 80% off sale on closing in my city. I bought $200 worth of batteries, resistors, diodes, power mosfets, 555 timer chips, bread boards, pcb's, leds, chargers ect... Just felt wrong getting everything for practically free. I would of returned it all just for them to stay in the shopping center. I miss the conversations and brainstorming quick thinking managers, workers. Brilliant minds.
You missed a great blessing. Oh and by the way, what is a CP/M any way ?@@leecowell8165
Yes Sir. My motto too for my 29+ years I worked for the Shack.
I missed Radio Shack a lot - I used to spend there hours and hours, buying incredible stuff, you can find in that store only. I am very, very happy that Radio Shack is coming back!!
Jameco sells stuff that RS never heard of... Also Mouser, of course. If you wanted SMD stuff those were the jobbers you looked at, not RS.
@@leecowell8165what the hell is jameco
I miss Radio Shack as it was in the 70's, 80's and 90's. I spent major money there throughout my life. The local Radio Shack that was near me became a cell phone store. The only business they cared about was selling phones and plans. I miss the days when you could buy capacitors, diodes, stereo equipment and all sorts of necessities. I miss walking in the store and being greeted by someone who knew what they were talking about. I also remember in the 80's our local Radio Shack had a repair technician in house.
The 300 in one electronic science project kit was one of the things that led to my early education in electronics
Always wanted one!
Yeah, and Heathkit had teaching kits too. Built a few of the kits too. Learned so much about basic electronics. Way better than what todays youth does with their time....
That kit made me want to become a TV and radio repair guy. Kinda glad I didn't but I still have an interest in electronics.
@@scrappy7571 Looks like Heathkit is slowly coming back too. They don't have the big ham radio kits of their heyday, but they have a few kits to get people into electronics.
@@TheREALJosephTurner I did see a while back they re-introduced the clock kit. Will check into more. A tube amplifier kit, is in in my dreams.
What was the best thing about Radio Shack was the availability of various electronic parts and supplies, odd cables and plugs and jacks, and just the general support of the maker community as it could be called. They failed in later years by selling over priced technology products and cutting back on electronic components. I liked being able to go into a Radio Shack and getting all the parts to build a light pen from a magazine article.
My last purchase at a physical RS store was Arctic Silver thermal paste.
Thats all I went there for. Resistors, capacitors, Pots, IGBT's...I could head to radio shack and get another just about as fast as I could burn one up.
@@bttr2brnout792 _"... get another just about as fast as I could burn one up."_
'Magic smoke'! RS was my toy store.
Yep. They didn't have high end or boutique parts but basic, utilitarian parts that are very useful. I often shopped at the local RS when I was working on tube amplifier projects.
My last purchase was a shitty soldering iron i learned with until i got a hakko fx951
@@sethreign8103 I had to look that model up. I would get one in a heartbeat but I still want one with fume extraction. I always have to sit by the window with the fan on.
Back in the early 90’s when I carried a boombox that took 10 D cells everywhere. I discovered their batteries in barrels near the front of the store. They had red ones and green ones. The green ones were their premium line of batteries and they were nearly half the price of Duracell & Energizers but by far lasted longer. I had a couple of green batteries that were like 12yrs old and they STILL had a charge and worked for a while. Nuts!
duracell is no longer good. i have had many leak still in date in new package? but i found old ones dated to 2013 still fully charged new no leaking problem. also i had some new with reverse polarity problem? no clue what theyre doing in the factory now? energizer batteries ive not had trouble with. just dont seem to last as long as years ago.
@@joeyjennings9548 That's got to be a handling and shipping issue, possibly a stocking one. Probably local to you.
These days ALL the alkaline batteries are the same except the external wrapper that's the one thing they change on the line the makes them, everything else is paused just long enough to swap out the stock of wrappers then turned back on. Now mind you they are then sent off to the various brands and/or their warehouses so poor handling after that could cause differentiation.
Respected testing firms (place like consumer reports and such) and various others have tested the brands and rarely found >1% variation on lifespan or any other stat. And that's from worst brand to best, not each brand relative the average or median.
Wow! That is great. Hope to see one soon. Miss Radio Shack, such a unique store and was always helpful.
I really hope the current management of Radio Shack is a lot smarter than the last one. There's so much potential in radio shack as a hobbyist store, yet the old management focused on the most common items that anyone could sell. They should be selling buckets of components rather than having huge blister packs for tiny parts, maybe even holding maker meetings like comic and gaming stores hold meetings of gamers.
Agreed. Thay also need make it easy to order components for projects, with a strong online, as well as offline presence.
3D printing would be a nicely huge field they could get into whilst educating the community!!!😁👍🏻
Our world is only becoming increasingly MORE electronic. Now, we live in the age where nearly everything is controlled by computers or electronics and robotics is really taking off. At the same time, stores like Radio Shack and Fry’s struggle or go out of business? Makes no sense to me.
Radio Shack would not sell televisions for decades because the margins were too low. The problem with small parts was that it was labor-intensive to sort them out of the big boxes from the force-feed warehouse, and hang them on the hooks. Most of the cost in that little high-margin package of resistors was labor.
But the little hi fi setups... the STA-19 receiver and Minimus 7 speakers for example... sweet!
It would be nice, as the author/video dude said, to be able to get one or two parts instead of ordering on line and waiting for delivery.
id love to see them bring back the science fair kits.
No doubt that was education in a box!
I think they have them - you can look at the online store.
And remember the Forrest Mims electronics books?!🤔😁👍🏻
@@fookingsog the graph paper books ,man i wish i still had all of them just for nostalgia.that was education!
Welcome back RadioShack. Glad to see you recovering.
I love it. I really hope they start bringing more stores back. It’s nice to be able to just walk in the store and grab what you need instead of having to wait for it in the mail.
_"...instead of having to wait for it in the mail."_
For me, the one exception is sending gerbers over the internet and ordering 2 sided pcb's. I have to add that I never would have reached that point without Radioshack and Forrest Mims.
Glad to see they still have stuff for doing real electronics projects.
I worked at 4 different Radio Shack stores when I was a kid in NJ back in the early 1980's. I really, really miss those stores. If you were an electronics or audio enthusiast, you could find stuff at Radio Shack that you just couldn't find anywhere else. Plus, it was a place where all of the geeks and nerds could meet up and discuss common interests without fear of being mocked or picked on by "the cool kids."
It was sad to see the stores go down the path of trying to become cell phone resellers.
I would say that selling phones saved the company from an earlier demise. (or are you talking about the "Sprint/Radio Shack" stores that came AFTER they already had gone under)
They did Sprint & Dish Network. What could really bring RatShack back is if they get into the Maker scene and create a synergistic relationship!!!
I remember in the early 80's their great sounding stereo systems..I still have 2 pairs of the Mach One speakers model 4024A with the non rotting woofer foams..I have a pair of the T-100 speakers also...Great memories.
We spent so much time in the Sparta, NJ Radio Shack in the 80s that we knew the staff. Home stereos, calculator watches, computers... Yeah, I remember the cell phone thing about 10-12 years ago. That was sad.
Yeah NERDs Like Steve Jobs?
Thats great news. Still have a 1979 Flavor Am Fm pocket radio. And still works . These radios came in 11 or 12 different Colors. I Remember Blue ,strawberry, green brown ,Red ,yellow.and a few other colors. Great CB radios had a few of them in the early 80s. All Realistic products 😍. We Need them back.
I bought my first CB radio from RS in the early 70's. Great memories from this store!
RS had some of BEST CB radios of that era!
My first FM radio was a R/S converter unit for the factory am radio in my 62 Falcon.
And I'm not sure you can even find a vacuum tube anymore. But they always had them.
Seems like great corporations remain great until a generation or two later some family member destroys it.
Man, RS was a staple for my brother and I growing up in the 60s/70s and we continued to shop there until our last local store closed about 15 years ago. I hope they manage to survive in retail moving forward.
same here . Heathkit was the other main stay for fun projects and like radio shack has been online for a while .
Radio Shack use to sell the largest selection of record player needles and weather radios.
I hope the Radio Shack stores return , a lot of people don't know one of the best reasons . I played guitar in " bar bands " most of my life , and there were numerous occasions when the easy availability of replacement components for various amps saved our butts , and I'll bet I'm NOT the only one with the same or similar experience !!!
GREAT! I have missed Radio Shack more than any Store from my past. I need them so much for older electronics from vacuum tube radios, to antennas.
I loved Radio Shack I've bought tons of stuff there in the 90's I still have a multiband radio that still works and a realistic 10 band EQ that's close to or at 30 years old and still works great. I'm glad that they are making a comeback.
I have some Mach 3 stereo speakers, still work fine although need to be re rolled, as in the foam on the outer of the woofer. Geez I even have a speaker that was given to me when I was around 10 and now i am 54.
Hopefully these stores do well. I have a Radio Shack trunk tracking scanner from the mid 2000's that still works perfectly fine. They sold many items you couldn't find elsewhere.
I feel as you do, glad to see a return, especially the bits and pieces part of their inventory. I thought RS made a huge mistake in the early 2000s by not embracing the "maker's movement." I have and occasionally use the small cassette player/recorder they sold. I want to say I bought it in the early 80s and it still works fine for transferring the occasional cassette to digital.
WHAT ! it still works…all the caps still good in it ! !
@@w9x7cv3vg6 Yep I've opened my multiband radio up a few times over the years just to check the caps and all look great and the eq I haven't opened that up but the last time I used it it sounded great and no magic smoke
I majored in electronics in college in around 1965, and radio shack was my home away from home! So I have some great memories! I spent 50 years in radio and TV, mainly playing with tape recorders -- it brings back good memories! Thanks for the update!
fantastic , i remember the old reel to reel recorders, the sound was crystal clear.
@@jodyguilbeaux8225 I had (and still have) a nice TEAC four track job with nice BIG VU meters, and I could multi track it, I used it to death to assemble industrial film narration and music and things. In the day, they were the best way to record audio. But, there were limitations, tape had "hiss" to it. Digital audio took over. Now I do multi track video, using just my smart phone and my laptop with a video editor to do 20 tracks of audio/video, with better quality than the big four track reel. I still use the reel to reel only for transferring old tapes to digital.
Glad to hear! I used to always buy audio cassette repair kits back when cassettes were popular as well as RCA cables and various audio adapters, couplers, etc.. I had fixed many cassette Sony Walkman internal parts, wiring, and soldering equipment thanks to Radio Shack. Fun days!!!
Thanks for posting and sharing, gonna have to see if I can find one close to my town. 👍👍
I made so many things with parts from Radio Shack. I needed a device to be able to control my 8mm & 16mm film cameras. I wanted to make time lapse movies but nothing existed to control my cameras. So I built my own intervalometer. It allowed me to take one frame every 0.001 seconds to 1000.00 minutes. Of course the lower capacity of every 0.001 seconds was beyond my camera’s capabilities but I could have the intervalometer release the shutter every 1 sec, 60 sec or 600 minutes. I used one of Radio Shack’s metal boxes to put a circuit board and everything else I needed. The intervalometer worked perfectly. I made a lot of time lapse movies in film class in college. I’d attach the intervalometer to my cameras and put it on top of a tripod and leave it there for a week or a month shooting frames at any predetermined interval I wanted. My professor was amazed at my invention. He also loved my films. My classmates loved it too.
That’s just one thing I created using Radio Shack supplies. I loved being able to but resisters, capacitors, wires and everything else I needed to assemble the devices I made. I had a BS degree in electrical engineering so it was easy to design and build anything I wanted.
I was disappointed when Radio Shack closed all around my town. There wasn’t another store that had a huge inventory of parts to create things.
Of course a lot of people won’t understand my need to build an intervalometer because cell phones can now do that. But if you were alive before cell phones people had to be creative and make things from scratch.
Thanks for this video. It reminded me of all the cool times I spent there looking for parts I needed to make things.
As a musician in the 80's and early 90's this store saved my ass many times. It was sad to see it go, Its nice to see it coming back. Need a 1/4 to an XLR adapter, Radio Shack. I still have a few that I still use.
ya they were the go to for cables, speaker wire, repair parts, and all sorts of stuff they were a staple in my neck of the wood s here in Canada
The problem with Radio Shack is that it has to compete against the Dollar Tree and Walmart. A lot of that stuff is in those stores and priced lower.
@@Chicago48 Apparently you don't remember RatShack as it was more than just Dollar Store or Walmart items. It was electronic COMPONENTS!!!
Made a guitar pre amp with everything bought from RS and Dow radio, 1980 ish.
@@Chicago48you could not buy capacitors or 555 timers at Dollar tree or WMT
The old radio shack rc cars where cool as hell. Definitely alot of memories
First one that came to mind was the Golden Arrow!
@@Fentertainment just sold one not long ago. I bought a big ass tote full of vintage radio shack rc cars. Most look brand new. Got 2 red arrows tires look brand new. 2 of the 4x4 blue Ford 2spd like new. Bunch of the old Porsche track cars, tanks, and a litteral crap ton of old radio shack parts and gadgets. Paid 5 bucks for the entire box
My first one you had to back up to turn left. No right turns. Kids these days dont know how good the rc cars they have now are!
@@danfarris135 lol I had forgotten all about that. How about the ones that had a wire from the remote to the car
@@MykeHunts had those also
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This is fantastic. I felt like part of my childhood was lost when they closed. Yay!
Tube testers . That brings back a flood of memories man .
I am 67 years old and bought things at Radio Shack on a great many occasions , until they switched to being " Cellphone Centric" . They needed to play to their strengths , not to what was trending . I was always picking up individual components for electronic repairs and builds which was fantastic . Doing electronic projects hardly seems worth the time when it's all coming from "somewhere" online .
67 here myself and totally agree with you. I watched it change to cell phone and big electronic devices like stereos, etc but the small parts were thinning out to almost none. I also used to go there back in 1980 and mess with the computers. Ended up buying 4 over the years.
51 here, and the Shack won't truly be back until I can walk in and buy a handful of resisters and a couple replacement capacitors.
@@TheREALJosephTurner Exactly !
Well, doing projects is worth it even if you only duplicate some Chinese crap. It's fun, you learn something, and you might be the one to invent a Flux Capacitor!
@@TheREALJosephTurner Exactly !
Former RadioShack employee. Worked for them for 29+ years. Until me and the DM had a disagreement. Then 1 year later he started having heart problems related to the pressure the company was laying on him. They crashed and burned because they let quality people who knew the business who cared about customers and was willing to take care of them and was not just interested in "Cherry Picking" the mobile Phone customer. They were at their peak as Long as Len Roberts was heading the ship. After him things started going down the drain. I wonder if the dealer stores can make much money or enough volume to stay in business, Most dealer stores usually have inventory from other vendors. This dealer store is stocked but just like you said a much smaller store in terms of inventory.
I doubt very seriously if the Hedge Fund guys will be willing to put money in any brick and mortar stores for a Corporate Image.
Hello Brother, I started with the Shack Nov 2 2002 and lasted until Aug 17 2017 when I locked my homestore for the last time before its total conversion into a Sprint Store ... I was a A.M.I.T from district 0595, and home stored at 01-8806. Wow, you said nearly the EXACT same things I did especially about Len and David. But dont forget about the LOAN, to Sprint PCS for the acquisition of Nextel and the debacle of the Texas Motor-Speedway and the RadioShack 500 then another 15 million to Daisy Fuentes. These bad decisions cost the company nearly 100 Million in 2006 alone. I honestly KNEW it was over when RC GATORS canceled the FORCE FEED trucking contract and UPS was only hitting our store once every two weeks with 4 to 5 boxes of fresh force feed. Hit me up if you ever want to reminisce with someone who was right there with you and took that rollercoaster ride same as you. ... "Im looking for the thing that hooks into the thing that makes the thing work" LOL Im sorry I could not resist myself...
@@falkwulf3842 I was canned right before the December/January Inventory. So I missed out on the money leaking out of the mother ship. I never knew about the Sprint-Nextel loans. Or forking out all that money to Daisy Fuentes. They also were in bed with Lance Armstrong. That went over like spilled milk. They were grasping at straws there at the end. I know I resented or resisted the online program RS setup because it meant money out of my pocket. But RadioShack should have embraced it more and get into the National Name brand programs sooner. Hiring Julian Day was another bad move. I enjoyed the sales and helping customers but I don't think I would have a broad enough vision to set the course for RS future endeavors. But Amazon does a whole lot of suggestive selling when you try to buy their products and most online electronic products the companies are still pushing extended warranties contracts. Yup when they started focusing on the mobile phone customer instead of their core group it turned into the Titanic.
I worked for RatShack while in college for several years. At that time it was the Sprint and Dish Network they were pushing. I could tell things weren't going terribly well as they were pushing those products so hard!!! If they had only supported the maker community & education and stuck around until 3D printing became mainstream, they'd still really be in business today!!!🙄
@@fookingsog Several factors doomed RadioShack. Bad management decisions. Push for Mobile Phone sells at the expense of their base customer. Plus the compensation model they had set up with the vendors was not a good long term solution. They let a lot of old timers (like me) who were very knowledgeable about their products and knew a lot about electronics go. I think the biggest thing is they did not embrace or have a good feel for online business or sales.
I had a friend that "joined" the RS team in the '90s. His manager told him not to waste time "helping" a customer find a component and instead try to sell MORE "trash-80" computers!
I built my first electronics project from Radio Shack in 1966…these were the little red and clear plastic clamshell boxes about 6x6x2, with all the parts and a schematic to build some cool gizmo. My first was a “light alarm” that triggered a buzzer when light struck a tiny solar cell…I used it to catch my little sister sneaking into my room. I built dozens of these box kits from an AM Radio to a 2-Station Intercom that I wired up between my bedroom and my friends bedroom in the house behind ours…accidentally left it on one day and my dad walked in my room and heard me listening to an argument between my friends parents in their house…he asked what I was listening to and when I told him he freaked and made me cut the wires then and there, screaming something about eve’s dropping…I was 9…I had no idea what eve’s dropping was. Went on to get an electronics engineering degree and teaching at the US Air Force Academy…all thanks directly to Radio Shack!
I really do miss the local Radio shack. Glad to see them make a comeback. If I need a couple of resisters or such, it's expensive to mail order, with shipping and have to wait. My 1998 RS clock radio and indoor/outdoor thermometer are both still working. Used to buy a lot of stuff there.
Grew up in the 70's, my whole stereo system was Realistic...loved it! STA-2000 amp, Optimus 10 speakers, LAB 400 turntable, SCT 16 tape deck, LV 10 headphones, that system rocked! Spent many winter evenings flipping through the catalogue. Would be nice to see RS make a comeback in Canada too. Noticed they got Realistic t-shirts at the website I'll be ordering one real soon
I had their mid priced 8 track recorder back in the day.It was used a lot and made tapes for friend too.They sound as good as ones we bought.
I still use my early 80s receiver in my garage but the speakers need replaced.
I grew up in the '50s and '60s, when you could buy any type of electronic "kit" including a COLOR TV KIT from Heathkit. Practically all my audio gear consisted of "kits" from companies such as: Dynakit, Harman Kardon, Haffler, Eico , etc. Boy, what FUN it was to assemble YOUR OWN electronic equipment. I still own some of these "kits" and use them everyday!
I am SO excited about this!
Radio Shack, welcome back.
Congratulations. TBH I'm not sure I was as excited about my first kiss as you are about the return of Radio Shack.
Franchising out is a good way to get a certain type of people coming in. Not every place has easy access to stores that sell maker tools, and sometimes you want to inspect the goods before throwing down the cash. Sometimes you just need a part right away!
Glad to see t5hey have circuit boards and a lot of soldering material. Now, if they have an array of capacitors and such I would be very happy.
Radio Shack got out of the "components" business because the hobbyist market dried up. It was cheaper to buy ready made products thanks to our Chinese friends. These "one-off" independent shops are NOT going to last long, guaranteed! I too miss the various electronic kits that used "through-hole" and "point to point" wiring. These will NEVER return.
Wow! This is really exciting! Am I a nerd? I can’t even tell you how frustrating it is to try to shop for components and supplies online. I want to see it in person so I can look at sizes and specs. Fry’s went out of business. I pray radio shack makes a legit comeback. The last time I saw one, it was a section inside of an Ace Hardware. Man, we need this.
I love Radio Shack! ❤️❤️❤️They have unique items all under one roof! Really good to know about the online store 👍
I miss Radio Shack. My first ham radio was an old Realistic HTX-202 handheld. I still have it and it works great! I have spent hundreds of dollars buying random parts and connectors for my projects. I hope they make a strong comeback and do it right. All the fancy gadgets are ok if you are into that, but we need components!
My first radio was also an HTX-202. Still have it. That old brick was a great mobile rig. I replaced the internal coin battery just last year.
Radio Shack will NOT try to make a "comeback" selling electronic parts in todays' world! Stop dreaming!
Good to see! Stores within stores are common in the UK too. Share the rent. Makes sense.
I'm 65 and live in Tallahassee Florida, there were a couple stores here, for a long time then they closed, but recently another brick and motor store put in a section of Radio Shack stuff, kind of a small section, but it's there. Also I do believe I did buy my first cell phone and plan at a Radio Shack many years ago. Glad to see they are coming back, loved that place. That is how you make America great again
I was born in 1972. I grew up in the hay day of Radio Shack. It was always a treat when my parents would take me to one of them. Some of my best Christmas gifts came from there at that time. You couldn't find this stuff in Walmart or anywhere else back then. Maybe some of the strero equipment would be in a Sears perhaps. Radio Shack was always on the cutting edge. In later years of course Best Buy came along. Walmart started carrying more electronics. Radio Shack all but died out, and their prices went up considerably. I'm glad to see them making a come back.
When all the stores started closing one-by-one, I was cleaning them out of all their hookup wire, solder , soldering tips, and other little circuit neccessities at 75% off. What a delicious bonanza that was ....
@corey Babcock If a store is going out of business and practically giving away their remaining stock, heck yeah I'm going to hoard it!
@corey Babcock lol.....
I went to my local Radio Shack when electronic components were 90% off. I swear, I felt like I was looting the place. When I went home, I showed my wife the receipt, which was about 5 feet long. She freaked.
Her: "How much did you spend?!?"
Me: 20 bucks.
@@adirondacker007 RatShack made huuuge profit on PB&A!!! They didn't loose too much selling to you that one time!🤭
@Sean Embry WHAT?! You got a WAVE SOLDERING MACHINE?!😂🤣😆
I too was a frequent customer of Radio Shack in my teens (1970s). I often rode my bike quite a ways to a particular RS to buy electronic parts and pieces to build things. I event took out a small bank loan with my father's help in 1983 to buy a new Color Computer (with Chicklet keyboard) in 1983. Glad to see RS returning!
I thought I was so original when I started calling them chiclet keyboards 😀
That coco was my first color computer after an original Model 1 TRS-80. Still have a coco 2 and 3 but has been stored in a box for a long time. I want to pull it out again to mess with. Yeah, did not really like the chiclet keyboard, but I did ok with it.
@@55Ramius I sold my CoCo 1 with a 64mb upgrade, tape drive, disk drive, CoCo Max tablet, carts and a boatload of assorted accessories a few years back for, I recall, $300. A 40ish year old computer! All still worked. It took two boxes to ship everything.
I worked for The Shack while in college and eventually managed a couple here in Albuquerque but once I got my E.E degree it led me to my dream jobs and said goodbye to the shack. It was fun, met great people but I hated... absolutely hated taking names and addresses! We had to maintain a 90% average on names and addresses or we were written up. So if the customer didn't want their receipt we faked alot of addresses after the customer left !
MAN i used to LOVE walking around that store lookin at all the cool stuff !!
Being a child of the 60's in Chicago, I can remember all of the big ones Newark and Allied were basically across the street from each other there also was an Olsen very near. in one day you could walk in all three and pickup all the items for your projects. For allied and Newark you placed the order at the desk and in 1 hr it would be ready for pickup, They used three wheeled bicycles in the warehouse for picking orders. Radio Shacks were farther out in the business strips. Olsen was sort of a mixed bag with mfg stock overruns and parts. There were also many small distributers that serviced the ma and pa tv repair businesses.
Glad they're back and I hope they grow! As an old fart I remember their 'glory days', and I remember their slow and painful death as they went into places they shouldn't have gone, losing touch with their historic consumer base. At least the store featured here seems to have learned something about maintaining your roots. Wish somebody would do it here!
Yeah, I went into an RS store about ten years ago, thinking. "what a bunch of junk. Where is everything?" No resistors, no capacitors, no circuit boards.
When I was doing field service Radio Shack saved me more than once. I learned early on to take the component out of the package before going back in to fix the equipment. Every part that I bought never failed.
Boy. Does that bring back memories. I spent so much time in radio shack stores buying electronic components. Had a lot of realistic stereo equipment, too. Every mall had a radio shack store.
Great! Now lets see if we can bring back Woolworth, Montgomery Ward, Western Auto and Bonanza Steak House
AB-SO-DAMN-LUTELY 1000%!!!😁👍🏻
AND SERVICE MERCHANDISE!!!
@@fookingsog haha ah yeah, good ole service merch, where dreams roll out to you on a conveyor
I used to do the same thing as you. I'm so happy to hear the news that Radio Shack is back.. I didn't even know you could order from them online.
Same for me. I had NO idea they had an online option. I bought quite a few components to repair various items when they had a somewhat local store.
I was surprised to see many Radio Shacks in Mexico - Sears stores too! Thanks for the video! Sure miss the 70's and 80's Radio Shack stores!
Great! It is so nice to see a Radio Shack store. 👍
It's kind of coming full circle. The first Radio Shack I went to in the early 1970's was a section in a Leonard's department store. Tandy had bought Leonard's in the late 1960's (and sold it to Dillard's in the mid-1970's).
Very few corporate stores, mostly franchise stores.
@@fookingsog Yes, now it is only franchise stores. Radio Shack closed all it's corporate stores.
I really hope they do make a return. I understood that it was a lot of mismanagement at the corporate level that finally put them out of business. If they could just do what made them famous to begin with, it just might work this time.
Is that something similar that happened with Commodore, back in the day?
@@steviebboy69 😞 [Shrug] dunno, cud be. i don't keep up with the computer world.
@@bob4analog I heard that they did, it is a pity I wonder what we would have today if they were still making computers. People still use and program the C64 to this day.
Yes, i remember the Commodore, we used 1 in the early 90s at work. It worked great, very reliable as i remember. The computer world is very finicky and fickle. Very much like a runaway train. I like to use puters that work right and are reliable for my puroses. I use XP and have nary any issues. I use either a tab or a win 10 for inet ops, but all other puters are off line; strictly stand alone. That's why they work so well. ☺ As for the Commodore, i know there's a lot of loyal users of them, and that's great. Yeah, it's a different world now; LPs made a comeback, why not Radio Shack. A fickle world.
@@bob4analog I still have a few C64's not my original one that i had when I was around 16, and an SX-64. I hear lots of people including Fran Blanche uses XP but never let them see the internet. Good on the LP's I have over 700 of em, Pity the electronics chain Dick Smith didnt come back but at least we have Jaycar for parts.
Hope their business model succeeds. I would like to see more individual electronic components.
My best Radio Shack item is a battery tester, the kind with a real meter, that I bought probably 30 years ago. Still works just fine.
Because of my disbelief i was expecting to open up to a Rick Astley video. They had made a spot in my heart ❤
I lived in Los Angeles 50 years. I first went into a Radio Shack store in 1970. It was located @ La Brea and Wilshire Boulevard on the west side of LaBrea. I went in to purchase a needle for my Girrard turntable. Then, in 1974, I purchased a 74 model Sansui 9090 db reciever. Radio Shack was the only store to have the powerful speakers that I needed for that very powerful 9090db reciever. If you know about THAT kind of reciever, it was 125 watt per channel reciever. I purchased 4 of the optimus 10-passive radiator speakers, with 10' bass driver, 8' mid range driver, and 5' tweeter with the built in brillance controller. To this day, 7-19-2022, I still have the same 4 speaker enclosures. But I had to replace the speaker drivers with Pyle drivers back in 1990. Radio shack sold very good merchandise. I wish they would return. Circuit City made a small run @ selling stereo equipment but they did not last long. There are no great stereo stores to match Radio Shack.
I miss the old days at Radio Shack..but I don't look for them to make a successful comeback here. They no longer sell stereo or computers. Young people aren't interested in hobby electronics. Maybe people will go there to buy accessories for their phone. The one in my city sits empty..while the one in Los Angeles kept downsizing their inventory. Now its just another phone store.
Awesome Memories!!! I'd like to see RatShack make a re-entry with support for the Maker Community with special emphasis on 3D printing which everyone can learn to be creative with!!!😁👍🏻
Bought my first soldering iron there. Modded a bunch of PS1 back in the days. Loved that I could go into their store to pick up any component. This was in a time where online shopping didn't really exist.
I've still got the pencil iron I bought there back in the '90's. It's a quality tool, and that's exactly why I bought it. No telling how many joints it's formed lol. I'll say that I've never seen another as-good quality iron again in a brick and mortar store...only online from the big name companies.
I started at RS as a sales associate in 1988. Became a store manager 2 years later at 20 years old. Left in 1997 for the IT industry. Sure miss all my loyal customers, many of whom became dear friends over the years.
I hope they do well. It's been years since I've been in a Radio Shack and hopefully I'll get a chance to visit one in the near future.
I really miss the toys RS used to sell around Christmas time (mostly in the late 70's early 80's) - that and the cube weather radio...
OH We NEED the shack back! It was the go to place for Cables, Adapters and so much more back in the beginning of the band life!
My last visit to a Radio Shack was about 10 years ago.
I needed an RCA cable at the moment and I wasn't able to pay more than $10 for 1.
The guy said they didn't have any in stock. They can special order it for me and it should be delivered in about a week.
I looked on my phone and saw that Amazon had one for $8 and would be delivered to my house in 2 days.
The guy then said "But we have these Monster Cables" and directed me to they back. Sure enough they did. The RCA cables were $50. I nearly broke down laughing.
I just said as politely as I could, "Thank you for you help" as I walked out the store.
I worked at Radio Shack in San Francisco from 1982 to 1986 and had a great time. Did they have any cassettes?
Miss the individual speakers that radio shack used to carry, they also had a speaker kit that had all the parts to build a decent speaker system, and it came with instructions and measurements for building the enclosure for the speaker drivers !
I built the eight inch three way speakers in 1992. Bought the book and all the speakers and "stuff" that I needed from them. I still use them today!
Parts Express or Dayton Audio
Praise God I love Radio Shack, I hope they come back! They never should have left in the first place!
I bought a TRS-80 model 1 in 1981 and it was over $1,000. It had no disc drive and only 16k of memory. I learned to code BASIC on it which introduced me to programming. One of the things I always liked about Radio Shack was they had electronics that you could not buy anywhere else. Some of the Tandy products were quite futuristic and the few things I bought worked quite well. The store looks like it had a lot of pre-packaged items that you can get anywhere. The online store looks like it has some neat things. I’ll have to check it out.
That thing was a gigantic POS. I preferred CP/M driving a Z80. The TRS80 used Intel's 8080's. My box had 64k of Seattle Computer RAM built around the S100, 50 pin bus. IBM changed everything here in Boca with the introduction of the 8088, 16 bit chip. They called it the PS1 the first true computer for the novice.
Radio Shack or Tandy here in the UK have been sadly missed for many years.
Maplin tried and failed to fill their market, so today it's mailorder or nothing.
The one thing that irked me about Radio Shack was their prices, unless what you wanted
was on offer, they were expensive.
This is why i think they went out of business, plus they drastically reduced the range of
components that they stocked so fewer people had any reason to go there and buy other items.
Which is a shame, the UK never has had many local electronic stores, now you can count the ones
left on one hand.
I have a battery holder to store all my different size batteries and it includes a tester. That was one of the last things I got but everything became expensive. I really liked their free catalogs but those they stopped printing some years ago. The parts bin was pretty neat to look thru.
@@briang.7206 It's a shame they all closed, despite the few bargains they were just too expensive, high street stores have higher overheads than mail order, and just can't compete on price
The PB&A (Parts, Batteries & Accessories) had huuuge markup and was where they made a majority of their in-store profit!!!
@@fookingsog That makes sense, as their prices for these items were many times what you would pay
at other suppliers.
Like food stores today, you have to buy when they have special offers or pay far too much.
If they're not also stocking Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and DIY home automation stuff like Shelly and Sonoff, they're missing a huge potential customer base.
Before they went under in my area, they were carrying Arduino and Rasberry stuff.
Add in 3D printing stuff too!!!
Where I started off this wonderful hobby which I still enjoy today.
I grew up with 3 stores. 1 in a sign shop, 1 in a mall and 1 large-ish in a strip mall with the drawers full of all the loose bits I could ever need. They closed in that order. About 5 years ago my locator showed 2 stores within 150 miles of my home, both within existing stores. I've never watched the 'why Radio Shack sucks' videos because I like the ignorance lol. I love Radio Shack and the ability to find what I'm after. My primary receiver is a Realistic STA-95, it runs my Optimus 1s ;) and I even have a handful of Auvio headphones and earbuds, the wood-body ones, because at those prices when I like something I get multiples. The over-the-ears get used for recording and the earbuds are just nice. I so miss walking into a Radio Shack. Here's hoping that'll be a thing again. Thanks for sharing!
I hope they do well with new management. It used to be that HQ in Texas determined what inventory would be sold to all stores, and if a store manager said "we need transistors, not Barbie dolls" then TFB, they got the dolls that they couldn't sell. While the customers went elsewhere.
I used to wait for their catalog to come in the mail to check out all the new "stuff" and then run to the store to see it LIVE! I spent more than what I should most of the time. lol Good ole days.
I still have a cataloge from them i think i called it the dreambook. Bunch of kool things and parts to do repairs.
Seeing the cover of those "flyers" was good for a laugh! They would have stereo system ON SALE at 60% off the "sale" price which was 75% HIGHER than one at Lafayette Radio or Olson electronics!
I used to own a Pioneer turntable back in the seventies. "Belt Drive" was all the rage, but after a few years, the thing just would NOT keep a consistent speed. Back then, you couldn't simply go online and find a dozen different places that would sell you a turntable belt. I tried shortening/re-gluing, using a rubber band, etc. We lived in a small town, but did have a Radio Shack store nearby. One day I got so fed up with the Pioneer that I went out and bought a "Realistic" turntable. Don't laugh, it was a direct-drive, had a speed pitch control, and built-in strobe to check speed. I was in heaven! I use it to this day.
I still have a Stereo Headphones cable extension (16 ft. long) I bought in one of the 'old' Radio Shack stores back in 2003...
I don't like wireless stuff very much... So for my JBL over-ear Heaphones it still works pretty well.
Glad to know Radio Shack stores are back!
They were useful. Could always get audio video cables I needed, plus soldering supplies. I still have a record player with an 8 track that was bought from Radio Shack. Wow. I forgot about that thing. I think Walmart hurt them the most. When a person could buy toys, stereos, tv's and computers over there, it cut into the profits too much.
Walmart hurt every mom and pop store in every town whether WM had a store in it or not. They’re the reason there are very few genuine hardware and small stores of any kind, anywhere now. They’d run the moms and pops out of business by underselling them and then when those little stores were gone, WM upped their prices because they were the only game in town. The big box home improvement stores had a hand in killing the hardware stores too, but they mainly wiped. Out the local lumber yards.
Polarcupcheck, if you still own a Realistic radio tape thing you might want to spray out the controls, Volume controls with contact cleaner, our local Radio club and repair guy fixed our stereo in 1988 it sounded so bad and full Static. I have 3 old radios im starting to work on. I have a GE radio from 1978
Mine before it closed still had a small assortment of electronic parts, but I quit going as I got tired of the pimply faced teenaged kid following me around wanting to know if I wanted to buy a cell phone. I finally one day asked him, "do you have 22k resistors and 30 microfarad capacitors?" He stammered and said, I don't think we sell those...I held them up and told him, "well, you do, you might want to learn your inventory".
Same with the walking pustules at my local radio Shack. 🤣
BASED!🤭
I have also behaved as an ASS-HOLE to others...usually not someone younger than me and never as a reason to brag....
@@chipsramek3868 You know what they say about "TEAM", right?🤔
There's an "i" in the "A" hole!!!🤣😂😆👍🏻
We have a well stocked Radio Shack in Hondo Texas. Glad you have one also. Thanks for posting.
I love Radio Shack! Radio Shack please come back to Denison Texas! We miss you...I miss you.
For us ham radio guys, I definitely miss Radio Shack. KO4HPC 73
You should say the OLD Radio Shack. Once they replaced the resistors, capacitors, switches, etc with cell phones and televisions, they basically became the WalMart electronics department. Employees went from friendly and knowledgeable to pushy cell phone dealers. I want the OLD Shack back! 73
This is the company that should be called the "Over there Company!" I tried to support them by buying components for electronics from them! But the answer was always "Over there!" When they removed the components I no longer needed them!
Young people have no interest in learning electronics and few of us are repairing things. The Radio Shack of the 1980's where they sold components.. Stereo.. Computers and chargers for laptops and they even had power supplies for desktop PC's. The one in my city sits empty while the one in Los Angeles kept downsizing their inventory and now only sell phones.
@@briang.7206 if we don't design and make stuff then we loose that ability in the USA! It is extremely shortsighted to not make things! We in the USA came up with always making stuff! Give that up and you give up our ability to innovate! We allowed China to make our stuff and gave it all to China! We had the fabrication units to make chips and everything else! We sold Boston Dynamics to China! So our robotics innovations are lost! Do you wish to become a third rate country?
@@briang.7206 I think it's not so much about a general lack of interest, as much as availability and visibility. if I look at my experiences the only time I got shown that hobby electronics was even a thing that existed, was my dad tried to show me things. there was nothing in school, or any programs or meetup or clubs or anything of that sort. really if it wasn't for him I'd also have no interest in it; not because I'd like it any less then i do now, but because I'd be busy doing stuff that I did get exposed to and hobby electronics wouldn't of been one of them.
Radio Shack was my most favorite store. I used to buy so many parts for my electronic projects all the way until they closed. I miss them deeply.
Man! You had me starting to wax nostalgic! Oh, missing the "Good old days"!
There's one in Sequim, WA that's just one town over from where I live. It's come in handy a few times when I needed something the same day.
A 200+ page Christmas catalog would be awesome but those days are gone unfortunately. I looked forward to them every year when I was a kid. I would spend hours looking at them.
My favorite was the realistic dx radios. They were great.
i still have the dx 160 and the dx 394 both work fine.
was talking about how much i missed the shack so happy to see this.
THANKS for the Update!!! I,also, grew up in Radio Shack,starting in the 60's and I used their Tube Tester
This looks like a store where I could spend all day dreaming about projects I want to make.
There used to be one at the mall near my house when I was a kid. I'd spend hours looking at stuff on the shelves and on the rack and I didn't have a clue what they were.
I had a good time wandering through the store. I made my first buy. An AM/FM radio cost a few bucks.
I also bought a radio kit. I made my own radio. Very cool.
I always liked walking into Radio Shack and looking around, and this one looks the same as it use to.
My heart was broken when Radio Shack stores closed here in Canada and were replaced by an electronics retailer called The Source. I can buy a cell phone at any Walmart but where can I buy micro heat shrink tubing or a step down transformer? Oh I miss Radio Shack.
Princess auto?
There used to be one in the Ace Hardware in my town years ago. They still have a few of the old items out in the Ace aisle's.
Same with my area. The last of RS in my area was part of an Ace Hardware in a town a few miles away. There was also a RS store in the mall a few miles further away, but it closed and I THINK part of it's remaining inventory was moved to the Ace Hardware outlet before the RS stores went away in my neck of the woods.
I remember when Radio Shack was an old time hardware store for electronics.
Bins and bins and bins of every electronic component you could think of.
Like the days of the Milkman and Fuller Brush man; GONE WITH THE WIND.
I'll bet you most people don't even know what a "RADIO SHACK" is.
This came up on my recomends,this is my home town. I am blown away.
You'd think with the huge maker base nowadays that they'd be a no brainer. Hope they rise again.
Great video!! I just recently found out that we have an ACTUAL full RadioShack store near me here in central Illinois. It felt so nostalgic to browse the shelves. I think I spent most of the money I had on me! I actually did a video on it and covered the very cool realistic optimus 7's if anyone is interested in seeing the Fairbury Illinois RadioShack. Thank you for uploading this bud!!! I could'nt subscribe fast enough!