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The first “Radio Shack”, opened by two brothers in Boston, closed. This sign was hanging on the door 30
The first “Radio Shack”, opened by two brothers in Boston, closed. This sign was hanging on the door
The first “Radio Shack”, opened by two brothers in Boston, closed. This sign was hanging on the door
For those interested, the address is 730 Commonwealth Avenue. The store first opened as an independent business in 1921.
Edit: This might not have actually been the first store, but rather the first showroom they had for equipment. The first store, when Radio Shack did mail-order, was at 64 Brattle Street according to Wikipedia. This is a Cambridge address, but Wikipedia and others describe the first location as ‘downtown Boston’. If anyone can confirm the location of the first store, that would be great!
They’ve been “You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Cell Phones” for over a decade, but as an electronics hobbyist, it’s still sad to see them go.
As a broadcast eng for a few years, Radio Shack was a last minute lifeline for the field if something went south. There was usually just enough around for a solution to be McGyver’d.
Why would you use a sideways face like an emoji when you’re hand writing a sign?
What a sad sad day.
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It’s so strange that electronic stores like these aren’t thriving when we use electronics far more than ever before. How did Radio Shack do better business 50 years ago versus today?
Sad to see it go, but the last time I went into a radio shack and asked where their piezo sensors were, I got a blank stare from the attendant behind the counter. She then asked me if that was a type of phone. Amazon got my business that day.
BAADER-MEINHOF! I was just at the CVS next door Saturday night.
I remember going to a Radio Shack one night and the chick that was working there jokingly said “holy crap, you’re the first person I’ve seen in 9 hours!”. It was funny, but also sad because it actually wasn’t a joke.
My fondest memories of Radio Shack was when I got my hands on the Forest Mims books. I saved up my money from working at my parent’s restaurant and went there almost every month to buy another book in the series/more electronic parts until I had all of them. Sometimes I even sacrificed eating lunch at school by using my lunch money to supplement.
Besides the books, I am reminded of [this scene in Short Circuit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnoZ39hqctk) whenever I see Radio Shack.
I worked at a radio shack for 2 weeks. Literally, never again.
When I was a kid, I wrote a letter to Radio Shack, explaining how they should sell a product that makes cars talk (really, just paraphrasing much of the premise to “Night Rider.”) I’m not certain who my parents mailed the letter to, though a couple of weeks later I received a response, along with a “1x Free Package Of Batteries Each Month For A Year” card. I went to my nearest RS and redeemed it for a small pack of AA batteries for two months in a row, until promptly losing the card thereafter. Sure Brings back some nice memories though…
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But my battery of the month card!
Was supposed to be an Ace hardware for electronic parts. Ended up trying to be a mini Best buy/apple store that nobody wanted or needed because they just sell random shit.
Sad to see, but that is what happens to a mismanaged business. They could have been a whole lot more and been the leader, but became what they are.
This makes me so sad. Buying LEDs and microswitchee there was what sparked my lifelong love of hobby electronics.
I went to Radioshack recently looking for an Arduino Uno R3. They literally had a whole section of various $40-90 packs of a few resistors, LEDs, some other basic stuff for the tutorials, but they didn’t have the *actual board* at all.
I asked and they said they haven’t even gotten one in months.
Seriously, it’s like they were fucking trying to go out of business.
My first visit to a Radio Shack in the early 80s was the reason I became a software engineer. I was mesmerized by watching another kid type some BASIC into a TRS-80 CoCo of the 10 PRINT “HELLO”; variety. I had a fantasy in my teen years to own a Radio Shack that had a secret basement apartment that I would live in… which I have never told another living soul until now.
I remember in high school in the late 80s where some electronics hobbyists had wired up some gizmo or other with a breadboard and parts all obtained at Radio Shack. They were wizards to me, and I hoped that one day I’d be cool enough to do something similar.
Every time I’ve been into a store after turn turn of the millennium has been a profound disappointment. They had no more electronics than one could find at Sears, and had branched out into cell phones and RC cars. It was as sad a thing as when I started seeing comic book stores sell baseball cards.
I’ve missed them for 17 years, and it was heartbreaking to watching them slowly implode.
I just had a radio shack open in my area last month. It had been in business for 30+ years at another location and they decided to move to see if business would improve. Owner said they were doing pretty good sales so far.
I also asked him about the current bankruptcy and he explained all about what happened since the last bankruptcy and what would probably be happening with this one.
So for at least one store, the shack is back.
I hated to see them go but I loved the 98% off sale on the last day.
[Some old logos for nostalgia sake…](http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/history-2.html)
I grew up with the “bullet hole lettering” logo, and that’s the Radio Shack I will always remember… I bought my first tone dialer to make a red box at Radio Shack. Thanks for the good times Radio Shack!
Sadly, the Australian equivalent “Dick Smith Electronics” closed last year.
I worked there casually for 6 years whilst at university. I spent pretty much all my pay on stock, and coincidentally knew every component like the back of my hand. This was helped by the very generous employee discount which was “cost price +10%”. In many cases this meant a $10 cable was 30c.
It was a great model for encouraging staff to get involved and support their growing interest in stuff the store sold, and in turn we would be better salesman for the store. And people would come back. I had loyal hobbyist’s come back to my store asking after me for the 6 years I was there.
Then Dick Smith was bought out by a big grocery conglomerate that drove it into the ground. The first thing they did was take away the staff discount. On the day they announced it was the last day of the staff discount, i spent $2000 on components, cables and kits and anythingeverything i knew had a huge markup. Theft went up dramatically after this. So they paid for security staff.
Next they got rid of all the long time knowledgeable staff and replaced them with the cheapest, 17 yr olds they could find. Years later they closed their doors due to lack of profit.
Just another anecdotal story of how old school business practices may not translate easily as being the optimum profit model in the books, but they must be doing something right if they continue to stay in business.
This makes me almost as sad as when Blockbuster went out of business.
Retired from Pharmacy about 12 years ago, went to work at RS because I thought it would be fun, and it was, for a while. Loved when parents or kids came in looking for science project ideas, parts, etc. Manager busted my chops because I didn`t also sell t hem a cell phone. When I did sell a phone, had to bring to the counter at least 4 things as a companion sale: case, car charger,ear hones, etc. Manager was a beast, then got fired and jailed for stealing cell phone for his entire family, and then bringing them back to sell as new when they tired of the one they had
The one near Market & 3rd is SF still sells components. Going out of business soon though.
They have a big sign in front saying its a 60% off sale. but when you go in, its all a pointless 20% and 30% off sale. The sign actually says, upon closer inspection, its “up to” 60% off.
Digging through the entire store carefully, I finally found the one section that was 60% off. It was the components. But the markup was always so insane there, its still pointless. A resister that costs $0.10 on digikey, would be marked up to $2.50 at radio shack, and at 50% off is still $1.50.
I bought some heat-shrink tubing for making my own usb cables.
In the 90s they sold, not only components, but also computers, software, and lots of other types of products. It was a mini best buy. It was great. Imagine a Best-buy in a mall, but not as an Anchor store.
Every time I service a Realistic or Optimus brand receiver it’s both fun and depressing.
It’s fun because the gear was often quite well designed, and in some cases, as unique as it was beastly. It’s depressing because when you work on stuff from the height of Realistic, like say an STA-2100, you see *exactly* how far RS has fallen.
One doesn’t have to be an old timer or a vintage gear enthusiast to remember “the good old days” either; being a “90s kid” with an early interest in electronics will provide one with sufficient fond memories in many cases.
Say you’re listening to a pair of Optimus or even the later RCA Pro LX series speakers with the Linaeum tweeters matched to a good sub and are surprised every time by how smooth they sound and how good the stereo imaging is for so little money. That’s fun…until you think too much about the fact that just 15 years ago or so, RS left these wonderful things to wither and die in the market by not giving them the marketing support and product updates they so richly deserved. To add insult to injury, they did so after having their products highly acclaimed just a few years prior in the *audiophile* press. They still sell like hotcakes on eBay, and for good reason. A few updates here and there and some fresh marketing might have added a decade or more to the Minimus and Pro LX speaker line.
You can still get speakers at Radio Shack but I don’t suggest it. It’s all crap, especially compared to what you could get in the 90s and even early 2000s.
Yes kids, even 1990s RS had unique products, a real selection of parts that were actually useful and people that knew what their products actually did.