Radio Shack

[Jules Richardson]

On 02/05/2015 04:33 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Feb 2015, Ali wrote:
>> RadioShack had it essentially right in the 2014 Super Bowl commercial -
>> the 80s called and they did want their store back. What they screwed up
>> was thinking that meant the old store had to go and be replaced with the
>> current monstrosity.
>> RadioShack should have brought back the store of the 1980s and updated
>> it items like cheap cables, Raspberry Pi kits, etc. I.E. hobbyist and do
>> it yourself stuff. Yes, they still would have to close a number of
>> locations (do you really need a ratshack on every corner?) but what
>> would have been left behind would have thrived...
>
> No, they would have had to take it back to the 1960s and 1970s.
> By the 1980s, Radio Shack was already committed to changing from hobbyist
> supplies to crappy consumer electronics.

I just visited my local one (I wasn't even sure if it was still there) and 
was actually quite surprised with how many components they had - not 
significant by any means of course, but still far more than I remember 
there being in the last store I went into (which was of similar size, but 
well over a decade ago now).

They didn't have a 7809 regulator, which is what I actually went there for 
on the offchance they had one, but there were enough 
probably-useful-at-some-future-date bits and pieces that I'll go back in a 
few weeks to see if it's worth loading up on stuff. The guy behind the 
counter said 6-8 weeks before they close the doors for good - although 
component prices might not be dropped much below the 25% off that they're 
currently at (I should have asked where the unsold stock was going).

cheers

Jules