During the past year and quickly escalating these last few months an end of an era has come to a final close. Though this particular “end” in reality had come some many years back. The closing and bankruptcy announcement this past week of Radio Shack has brought an end to the last and most famous of all store front’s that every electronics’ enthusiast, technician or the first generation “Geek Squad” could gravitate too.
Back in a day when the urgent need for that resistor, capacitor, transistor or perhaps maybe a roll of solder wire that was needed by the electronic technician could be easily acquired at the corner electronics supply store. Many of these store fronts were the supply houses for television and radio repair shops and supported their field technicians providing those repair services right at the customer’s home.
Radio Shack was one those electronic component stores that had expanded itself into an evolving technology support network to the many consumers it served. A business whose roots date back to the year 1921 as a Boston ham radio shop and mail order operation that was later acquired in 1963 by the Texas leather supplier Tandy Corporation. Its brand name “Realistic” boosted a line of products such as citizen band (CB) radios, stereo systems, calculators and electronic game devices galore. In 1977 Radio Shack introduced the first mass-marketed, fully assembled personal computer – the TRS 80 with a Level II Basic operating system created by a guy named Bill Gates! Another milestone of the Radio Shack computer line came in 1983 when the “Model 100” laptop was introduced, the first of its kind in the computer industry. The years following Radio Shack’s peak in the 1980’s saw a new line of advanced technological products become the anchor of their business model – the cellular telephone.
As all business’ it’s said have a beginning and an end – the alpha and the omega! The electronics component supply stores of old such as the Radio Shack’s or others are an era gone by that was a “life line” to the field service electronic technician. The late afternoon or perhaps evening service call could always be completed if that needed electronic component could be picked up in a pinch at the local electronics supply store. To the Radio Shack’s of a time gone by – you are and will be always sorely missed!
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An amazing place, no doubt. I remember going there with my father because they had the neatest gadgets and remote control cars.
More recently I needed a very uncommon glass fuse for an electronic controller. Let that sink in for a second…as if any glass fuse was common today. The only place in the universe of Google that even showed this fuse existed was the controller’s manufacturer and they were out of stock. In desperation I drove to the last stand alone Radio Shack in our region, pulled open the fuse drawer and there, in alphabetical order, was my fuse, basking in a radiant glow of golden light, with its very own orchestra playing in my ears. I bought a thousand year supply of 5 and made a friend very happy for about $2.