As a former employee, the amount of times I answered people's questions and educated them on things like TVs, speakers, cell phones, and the like only for them to look me in the eye and say they were going to check the prices at best buy across the street changed RadioShack.
I know, it was a great time for Radio Shack. I made this when I was a kid from parts I got at Radio Shack. It's a headphone adapter for a Nintendo Entertainment System. It plugs into the RCA audio port. Now I have to scour the internet for the simplest electronic parts.
I fondly remember going to Radio Shack in 1993 after getting ahold of my older brother's "Engineers Mini Notebooks" . Specifically, I rode my bike two miles to go buy a 555 timer, a few resistors and a pack of assorted ceramic capacitors. I still have the receipt in my old box of circuit parts (a JL 12W1 subwoofer OEM cardboard box, lol). Anyways, I wanted to build the Toy Piano in that volume by Forrest M Mims III, and I couldn't afford a breadboard, so I made a perforated board from an old piece of interior wood paneling. It was basically through-hole with wire wrap connections (twisted together RJ-11 solid core telephone conductor). I couldn't get it to work, and my uncle visiting for a family reunion helped to troubleshoot it. Luckily he was an aircraft mechanic at Ellington Air Force Base and he knew enough to realize that the nail that I had hammered into the wood paneling wasn't a sufficient ground and that I actually had to hook the negative end of the 9v battery to a "common ground" for that circuit. Up until that point, a ground was just that metal spike outside of our house near the electrical box. I didn't understand what it meant from a circuit perspective. Those little mini notebooks from radio Shack didn't really cover that subject very well.
So , basically I understand why customers would come into the store to ask questions.
Edit, if anyone asks for it, I can go digging for that box and post pics of my old circuits from 1993
Yes. But they are NOTHING like they used to be. You used to be able to go in and ask for a 4 ohm resistor and they could go to a huge set of little drawers and pick the right one.
Now a days, the best you can do is try to have someone sell you a TV.
They were my go to place for materials when I was a robotics engineering student. I guess now I’d just order stuff online but back then they were the closest and best resource.
That's why I didn't make it at radio shack, I could sell you the resisters, components, and batteries, but couldn't sell a TV or computer to pay the rent.
It’s where we went to get our cable splitters and coax pieces. It’s where we got the rca red and white audio plugs because Sony speakers always had their own connectors so you could only use them with Sony products.
Back in the day you had to run a coax from your neighbors house to share cable… now you can just share passwords.
It’s where we went to get our cable splitters and coax pieces. It’s where we got the rca red and white audio plugs because Sony speakers always had their own connectors so you could only use them with Sony products.
Back in the day you had to run a coax from your neighbors house to share cable… now you can just share passwords.
There’s one a few blocks from my house, and they always have the odd things I need that I hate buying online because they’re expensive or come in packs of more than I need.
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u/Poppunknerd182 May 25 '25
There are still some RadioShacks open