Working Daze by John Zakour and Scott Roberts for July 10, 2014

???

Too late. I went into a new Radio Shack yesterday and it has turned into a combo cell phone and Apple store – not a single audio receiver or resistor in sight.

Here is an Idea, maybe Radio Shack should start selling just radios of all sorts. Could not do worse for business than they are doing now. (I used to work there part time in the 80’s)

Radio Shack used to make some good stuff – Knight Kit(which they bought), TRS-80 Model 4’s, all kinds of radios and so on. Now, they look like they’ll go the route of Lafayette(who also had some goodies!). I still have the Lafayette FM converter that I added to my car to augment it’s AM radio back in the early 80’s.

Sort of feel sad about RS. They’re a victim of stuff being sold with all the necessary parts. In my immediate area there are still three left—a casualty rate of 50% over the last several years.

In another life, I managed an RS store. A few years ago, I went to one to get a replacement radio antenna. I asked at the counter and when told they didn’t carry them, I stepped back, looked around at all the cell phones and accessories and replied, “Sorry. I must be in the wrong store. I thought this was Radio Shack. My mistake.”.I turned and left the store, never to return.

It’s sad to see RS as a shadow of it’s former self. I will snap up Realistic and Micronata stuff at garage sales and antique stores when I can. Still have our old HX-1000 languishing on a shelf in my shed.

A couple of weeks ago, I needed two ‘old-school’ items, and Radio Shack had them in stock in the store. It’s not every day you need a replacement intercom system, or a pair of walkie-talkies (hey, I said old-school). …To top it off, the young man behind the counter actually knew exactly what I was talking about. All in all, a good experience with RS.

it doesn’t help that many of radio shack employees don’t know the difference between a resistor and a capacitor. or, the difference between volts, ohms, and amps. lately, all they know are cell phones.

I thought today was throw-up Thursday (see today’s Cornered).

I still go to Radio Shack whenever I need an adapter or some kind of audio video cable or doohickey. They are very reliable about having what you need for various home entertainment signal management needs, and I’ve found that the employees usually know exactly what I want from my description of what I want to do with the signal, and can lead me right to it.

@belgarathmthSadly, my local Lowes and Home Depot stores have a larger selection of adapters and A/V connection cables than my local company owned Radio Shack.

I gave up on RS back in the 80’s, I was going to hook up my Commodore 128D to my garage sale stereo, knew what was necessary went to RS to get the pieces and they argued with me that it couldn’t be done. Went elsewhere and got the patch cords and stuff, it worked just fine, and was a lot of fun. I hate being treated like an idiot when I know what I’m doing.

Hmmm. My local RS does carry all the cell phones etc but in the back they still have the components and recently have added in a whole section of all the new DIY Maker stuff – this is a revolution that is happening right now and they are in the right position to take advantage of it.

Well, I first learned programming Basic on a TRS-80 a few years after my divorce. With 4 kids in school, I was working and took a night school class for the programming. I still have a little Sharp hand-held calculator (with as much memory as that old TRS) and on which I wrote many of those programs (because all the buttons are dual-function and accept words in Basic). I still even have the old printer and somewhere may have printouts of some of the many programs that I wrote.

Back in the 80s I used those all the time in my field work (as a Facilities Engineer for Zenith Corp).

Sounds like the makings of a good “Pluggers” cartoon – A plugger remembers when Radio Shack actually sold radios! :o)

I can still get needles for my stereos turntable there.

they don’t have vacuum tube testers any more either, I used those as kid

Do you remember Allied? That was back in the 50s.

We just gave away the stereo and cabinet (didn’t work anymore) that my father (now 90) had built. And soon after my marriage, my husband built a Heathkit TV (with a little help from me). I learned a lot of new 4-letter words! Great kits if you had the patience.