The main reason that I stopped shopping at Radio Shack was their "DEMAND" for your name, address and phone number. If I could get what I needed some where else even if it meant a longer drive, I would skip Radio Shack.
The story of RadioShack - 96 Years
- Thread starter StevieC
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I always felt violated like going to a car dealer setting foot into that place.
Originally Posted by Linctex
Does anyone remember "Free Battery of the month" cards?
Yep, I used to get the free batteries.
Does anyone remember "Free Battery of the month" cards?
Yep, I used to get the free batteries.
Tandy, (the guy) actually knew how to take a failure pick up the pieces and make a reputable business with products people would want.
After he died all the profitable products that came from radio shack were directly from Tandy's original directives, the folks who followed him lined the place with bureaucracy even going so far as requiring each department to layer profit onto the outgoing cost to another dept. such nonsense meant Tandy didn't know what products they were actually profitable at making internally and by outsourcing or selling off their capabilities they lost the competitive advantage of "made in America by radio shack" on the parts sold and then couldn't charge a premium since you could buy a Belcan printer cable anywhere at a better price.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JFivtOmXPPM
Without Tandy they lost their ability to offer unique products and think critically and offer value in a crowded market place.
After he died all the profitable products that came from radio shack were directly from Tandy's original directives, the folks who followed him lined the place with bureaucracy even going so far as requiring each department to layer profit onto the outgoing cost to another dept. such nonsense meant Tandy didn't know what products they were actually profitable at making internally and by outsourcing or selling off their capabilities they lost the competitive advantage of "made in America by radio shack" on the parts sold and then couldn't charge a premium since you could buy a Belcan printer cable anywhere at a better price.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JFivtOmXPPM
Without Tandy they lost their ability to offer unique products and think critically and offer value in a crowded market place.
Originally Posted by StevieC
Garak, I'm surprised you had a Radio Shack at all in Saskatchewan with the population.
J/K
We did have a few.
The Computer Centre was the big deal, of course. I don't know if Saskatoon every had one. I'm certain they had the stores. I was heavily into the BBS scene at the time and FidoNet echomail was in its relative infancy in the province, so I never got to hear enough about the big computer centres in Saskatoon until I actually lived there, by which time Tandy was on the wane.
Garak, I'm surprised you had a Radio Shack at all in Saskatchewan with the population.
We did have a few.
Originally Posted by Lolvoguy
Was that on Victoria East?
No, it was on Albert St. between 7th Ave. and 6th Ave. on the west side of the street. There were sort of two strip malls there in that one lot. It was sort of on the northeast part of the strip mall. For ordinary Radio Shacks, I recall there being one in the Victoria Square Mall (Victoria Ave. East), the Northgate Mall, and the Cornwall Centre. The Cornwall's Source replacement is still there. I seem to recall when it was Radio Shack in the Cornwall it switching locations within the mall at one time. I actually wish I had taken some pictures of the demolition. Ironically, on the other side of the mall had been an eatery, and every replacement to it failed miserably and quickly, and there never was a good long term tenant in that location again.
I also used to be a member of the battery of the month club.
Was that on Victoria East?
No, it was on Albert St. between 7th Ave. and 6th Ave. on the west side of the street. There were sort of two strip malls there in that one lot. It was sort of on the northeast part of the strip mall. For ordinary Radio Shacks, I recall there being one in the Victoria Square Mall (Victoria Ave. East), the Northgate Mall, and the Cornwall Centre. The Cornwall's Source replacement is still there. I seem to recall when it was Radio Shack in the Cornwall it switching locations within the mall at one time. I actually wish I had taken some pictures of the demolition. Ironically, on the other side of the mall had been an eatery, and every replacement to it failed miserably and quickly, and there never was a good long term tenant in that location again.
I also used to be a member of the battery of the month club.
Originally Posted by Garak
Originally Posted by StevieC
Garak, I'm surprised you had a Radio Shack at all in Saskatchewan with the population.
J/K
We did have a few.
The Computer Centre was the big deal, of course. I don't know if Saskatoon every had one. I'm certain they had the stores. I was heavily into the BBS scene at the time and FidoNet echomail was in its relative infancy in the province, so I never got to hear enough about the big computer centres in Saskatoon until I actually lived there, by which time Tandy was on the wane.
I was big into BBS's back in the day and remember upgrading from my 2400 baud modem to a 14.4 and man could I download shareware much faster using Z-Modem and Q-Modem protocols. Then the Internet came along through a CSLIP connection using a script via a local BBS and using Winsock on top of that. Netscape 1.1 baby.
Originally Posted by StevieC
Garak, I'm surprised you had a Radio Shack at all in Saskatchewan with the population.
We did have a few.
I was big into BBS's back in the day and remember upgrading from my 2400 baud modem to a 14.4 and man could I download shareware much faster using Z-Modem and Q-Modem protocols. Then the Internet came along through a CSLIP connection using a script via a local BBS and using Winsock on top of that. Netscape 1.1 baby.
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There's a Radio Shack/Ben Franklin in Siren WI that I've been to a few times. My father in law has purchased his last 2 flat screens from there because they match prices and the customer service is great.
I just gave the the info from another RS store....
Originally Posted by StevieC
Originally Posted by Wolf359
You've got questions, we've got more questions, your name, address, phone number....
Yeah like when you want to just buy batteries....
Originally Posted by StevieC
Originally Posted by Wolf359
You've got questions, we've got more questions, your name, address, phone number....
Yeah like when you want to just buy batteries....
Originally Posted by StevieC
I was big into BBS's back in the day and remember upgrading from my 2400 baud modem to a 14.4 and man could I download shareware much faster using Z-Modem and Q-Modem protocols. Then the Internet came along through a CSLIP connection using a script via a local BBS and using Winsock on top of that. Netscape 1.1 baby.
I had a 300 baud modem from the getgo with my Model 4, all from the Radio Shack Computer Centre. There were still a couple places doing 110. This modem was a direct connect at least, but you'd dial the phone manually, then switch to originate and hang up. After, I got a 1200 from Radio Shack, at half price for a few hundred dollars. I believe that was one of the mall outlets. It had autodial, but was a pain because the TRS-80 telecommunications packages had difficulty dealing with the Radio Shack modem. If it sent the dialling data too fast to the modem, it couldn't keep up, and that didn't work well at all. So, the autodial lists were useless and I was relegated to still use a dot matrix printed BBS list. I finally got a Hayes compatible 2400 baud, USR I think it was, and used that for the longest time, even through the Amiga's entire service life. I went straight to 56.6 upon joining the PC world.
Back in those Radio Shack days, you sure did get a set of manuals with software and computers.
Binders and binders, and even audiocassette tutorials.
I was big into BBS's back in the day and remember upgrading from my 2400 baud modem to a 14.4 and man could I download shareware much faster using Z-Modem and Q-Modem protocols. Then the Internet came along through a CSLIP connection using a script via a local BBS and using Winsock on top of that. Netscape 1.1 baby.
I had a 300 baud modem from the getgo with my Model 4, all from the Radio Shack Computer Centre. There were still a couple places doing 110. This modem was a direct connect at least, but you'd dial the phone manually, then switch to originate and hang up. After, I got a 1200 from Radio Shack, at half price for a few hundred dollars. I believe that was one of the mall outlets. It had autodial, but was a pain because the TRS-80 telecommunications packages had difficulty dealing with the Radio Shack modem. If it sent the dialling data too fast to the modem, it couldn't keep up, and that didn't work well at all. So, the autodial lists were useless and I was relegated to still use a dot matrix printed BBS list. I finally got a Hayes compatible 2400 baud, USR I think it was, and used that for the longest time, even through the Amiga's entire service life. I went straight to 56.6 upon joining the PC world.
Back in those Radio Shack days, you sure did get a set of manuals with software and computers.
My first computer was a Tandy CoCo colour computer 3 without a modem. It was like a TRS-80 but with colour and you could add a CGA graphics monitor to it instead of using the RF port attached to a TV. Then my next computer was a 386 DX 33Mhz (When the turbo button was pressed).
This was the computer that had the 2400 baud modem. (Direct Connect) It was a Hayes with "error correction" - Don't pick-up the phone I'm downloading, oops correction. LOL
My first printer was a Star Colour Dot Matrix that used a multi-colour ribbon and understood the Epson FX-80 instructions if the Star Driver wasn't supported in your software. Which was great for Word Perfect 5.1 which didn't have the Star driver. My Print-Shop program had the star driver though so I could print banners in colour. It would take forever but it did a decent job.
When I first got my 386, it had an 80mb hard drive and 4mb of Ram and then we later upgraded it to 16mb or ram and a 540mb hard drive running SeaTools (Seagate) software so it would understand past the 528mb limit. It was always a slave to the 80mb boot drive though...
Then came along our Sound Blaster 16 and it was like getting all new games again now that you weren't relying on the PC Speaker.
Those were the days...
My first printer was a Star Colour Dot Matrix that used a multi-colour ribbon and understood the Epson FX-80 instructions if the Star Driver wasn't supported in your software. Which was great for Word Perfect 5.1 which didn't have the Star driver. My Print-Shop program had the star driver though so I could print banners in colour. It would take forever but it did a decent job.
When I first got my 386, it had an 80mb hard drive and 4mb of Ram and then we later upgraded it to 16mb or ram and a 540mb hard drive running SeaTools (Seagate) software so it would understand past the 528mb limit. It was always a slave to the 80mb boot drive though...
Then came along our Sound Blaster 16 and it was like getting all new games again now that you weren't relying on the PC Speaker.
Those were the days...
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I had the Radio Shack DMP-110 printer. Ironically, the software was far ahead of the printer and most of the rest of the hardware. Even though the DMP-110 didn't have any proportional spacing fonts, the high end word processor could do full justification without putting spaces between words. You were instructed to type two spaces after periods, and the software would grab slivers of space from there and then do some other modifications to make it a pseudo-PS font. No colour, of course.
With the Panasonic KX-P1124 I got later on (for the Amiga), you combine that with WP 5.1 on a PC, and you could do some pretty fine document creation that isn't even as easy to accomplish on MS Office or OpenOffice.
With the Panasonic KX-P1124 I got later on (for the Amiga), you combine that with WP 5.1 on a PC, and you could do some pretty fine document creation that isn't even as easy to accomplish on MS Office or OpenOffice.
As someone who spent the first 5 years of his young career working for that corp, good riddance. Dinosaurs will die.
Originally Posted by StevieC
Originally Posted by Wolf359
You've got questions, we've got more questions, your name, address, phone number....
Yeah like when you want to just buy batteries....
Oh yes, my first job was at Radio Shack and we had to ask, even if somebody ran into our store frantic to buy a new battery for their keyless entry fob because they couldn't get into their car. Hated having to ask, and people REALLY didn't like being asked. If we didn't capture that info, it showed up in our reports and our manager would gripe at us. After some time, I noticed how my colleagues circumvented this; our store's phone number and address were already known to the computer, so the receipts sometimes showed that we sold a battery to our own store...
Used to be a good RS customer, I was usually tinkering with electronic stuff in my youth, and had one of those 200 in 1 electronic project kits. Not too long ago I blew the mini fuse in my Radio Shack multimeter, and realized I can't just drive over to Radio Shack to buy them anymore.
Originally Posted by Wolf359
You've got questions, we've got more questions, your name, address, phone number....
Yeah like when you want to just buy batteries....
Oh yes, my first job was at Radio Shack and we had to ask, even if somebody ran into our store frantic to buy a new battery for their keyless entry fob because they couldn't get into their car. Hated having to ask, and people REALLY didn't like being asked. If we didn't capture that info, it showed up in our reports and our manager would gripe at us. After some time, I noticed how my colleagues circumvented this; our store's phone number and address were already known to the computer, so the receipts sometimes showed that we sold a battery to our own store...
Used to be a good RS customer, I was usually tinkering with electronic stuff in my youth, and had one of those 200 in 1 electronic project kits. Not too long ago I blew the mini fuse in my Radio Shack multimeter, and realized I can't just drive over to Radio Shack to buy them anymore.
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Radio Shack was AWESOME back in the 70s-early 80s. I remember going in there as a kid and being in total awe with all the gadgets and gizmos. Their raw audio driver selection was awesome too. If you happened to blow a driver in a home speaker system you could walk in there and find a replacement that'd match right up. They carried every turntable stylus known in existence. I still have two of their "monster receivers". Both are their flagship models from the late 70s. Made by Foster I think.
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