Radio Shack to close 1,100 stores

Totally unsurprised, although I would have thought that they were trying to make more of a go of the "new" image after that Super Bowl ad :shrug:.

I know they still have thousands of stores, but that's a hell of a chunk.
 
All they do now is try to sell you phones. Once they stopped carrying IC's, resistors and transistors, I never had much use for them.

Remember when they had the vacuum tube tester?
 
Tig said:
All they do now is try to sell you phones. Once they stopped carrying IC's, resistors and transistors, I never had much use for them.

Remember when they had the vacuum tube tester?
Click to expand...
They still have a small selection of components in the back that my son always wants to go drool over but honestly they all look like they were designed for 1980's car stereos. The only think I'll buy from there are caps and resistors if I'm in a hurry.
 
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I managed a Radio Shack back in the day.....(early 1990's).

Radio Shack can eat a bowl of dicks.

They sucked then, they suck now.......and I couldn't tell you the last time I was in one.....fuck 'em, I say.
It got worse after I left, but it really turned into a miserable shopping experience for everyone involved.
 
Seriously, will anyone really notice that they're gone?

I liked RS decades ago when they focused more on electronics parts for hobbyists. In more recent years, it seems that RS couldn't quite figure out what it wanted to be - electronics parts store, cell phone store, toy store, Best Buy wanna be, etc. . . .
 
last time I was in a RS store was about 6 years ago, to buy a nice long length of internet cord (whatever ya call it)
last time before that was to buy my Yamaha keyboard.
both times I had my stuff and was out in under a minute...
 
Ahem...
 

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Back in the 1980's,when I was in my avant garde performance art period, I came up with some outrageous ideas that required all sorts of odd connectors and wires; I was always able to walk in and find exactly what I needed, even though there was no sensible reason anyone would ever need it. The last time I went to Radio Shack they had nothing I needed and the workers were rather clueless.

My son worked for them a couple of years ago; he was not impressed.
 
It was starting to change while I was there.

Going out the windows was the knowledge of electronics, how things worked, what made it "tick" so to speak.

Coming in was "Sell, sell, sell" and all the propaganda involved with trying to convince people that RS' electronics lines were superior to the competition, even though they were simply last year's models from Pioneer, Yamaha, Clarion, etc...with an "Optimus" badge, selling at more than the original prices of now-obsolete gear.

They were always focused on "servicing" what they sell.....not realizing that electronics are really disposable items.

And, as I predicted, it bit them in the ass. There's only so many cell phones you can sell, you know?
 
Radio Shack FUCKED some good people who worked in their organization.

Remember they sent out emails laying off like 6500 people right before Christmas one year?
Didn't even have the common decency to fire them face to face.

I have no time for Radio Shack, and I don't feel sorry for them at all.
 
I bought a Realistic Concertmate MG-1 keyboard (made by Moog, similar to their Rouge) back in '82. That thing was a blast to play! Sadly it later died due to a spilled beer. They sell for almost $1000 now. :facepalm:

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When I was a kid I really wanted an Atari 2600 but my parents would only buy me this:

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I think this is really the origin for my lifelong Radio Shack disdain.
 
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I miss the Radio Shack of the good old days.

CircuitCity bought out all of the RS' in Canada and turned them in to The Source.

The Source is now a lot like what you guys have described above - phones, toys, and batteries.

I have gotten some pretty good deals there though, but I mainly check their website rather than walk in to the store.

I don't find too many people that know what they are talking about. Once in a while, there is a ray of hope, but then if I go back to that store, I find that the person has moved on..
 
They once had some cool stuff. For instance, I had their DX-160 shortwave radio at one time as well as a TRC-100B walkie walkie, fancy stuff for a kid. An actual 5 watt walkie talkie that transmitted with the power of a full size CB radio but ran on 10 AA batteries (that quickly depleted but I digress).

Radio shack even extended to my initial guitar involvement, they had a turntable preamp that made a great distortion box and I still have the SA-10 1 watt per channel stereo amp that I used to use (with now long gone plastic montgomery ward speakers) to hear what I was playing. I haven't fired it up in ten years but I bet it still works.

They later became sort of a sad cell phone store, a mere faded echo of themselves.
 
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