Nobody asks for my phone number anymore 
So can I like mail in my punch card to get free batteries?
I don’t want to buy parts online and wait a week. I want to drive over to RS and get parts in fifteen minutes.
Before the local RS folded, I asked for a 24v CT transformer. The guy asked me, “What’s a transformer?”
Radio Shack batteries, in my experience, fellated with great alacrity.
There’s a Radio Shack here in Honolulu, in Kahala Mall. I was never a fan, and even growing up it seemed to have a low-rent reputation. But I think it’s where I bought this one cheap device back in the 1970s that allowed me to Gasp! … tape telephone conversations! :eek: I was astounded. Just a little wire with a suction cup that stuck to the receiver end of the telephone handset, while the other end was a jack for plugging into a cassette recorder.
luckily there’s a small independent electronics store in my city which is basically what Radio Shack used to be in the '70s and '80s. their prices per piece are more than you can find online, but it ends up being cheaper due to not needing to pay for shipping.
I remember when RS were the retro video game stores … if you needed first or second gen tv switches boxes they had em or Atari or coleco ac adaptors they had them … heck rs even replaced the memory battery in my sega Saturn when it died… I paid 5.95 for a battery about the size of a quarter when sega was going to charge me a fortune and make me pay for shipping …I also bought my last independently owned pc through them via a CompuServe rebate …
I don’t think the internet killed Radio Shack. When you need something from the Shack, generally you need it NOW. I think what killed them was the throw-away mindset of both consumers and manufacturers, leading to a distinct drop in the amount of tinkering going on.
There was a super Radio shack in the 90’s in Denver. I can’t remember the original name, but after a while they changed it to “Radioshack.com”(which makes it impossible to google). That place was cool, a massive selection of parts of this and that, and you could pick up a 20 cent LED or obscure transistor for 20 cents, not 20 cents + 6 dollars S&H.
Was that superstore called “Incredible Universe”?
No,but there was one of those down south of Denver too. This place had regular Radio Shack component stuff, but was much bigger and had much more.
FIL (v.1.0) managed a Radio Shack. (That is not why I married his daughter, but I digress) The home office or whatever wanted him to buy electronic toys instead of parts.
Woohoo found it, Tech America
Thanks random dude on other board 
I miss Radio Shack too. I also miss Tower Records, Borders, Sandy’s Music, the Discophile, etc etc ad infinitum. Sic transit gloria etc.
Here’s a cool place in my neck of the woods. Haven’t been there in ages but I’m glad to see it’s still a going concern:
The flip side of that “throw-away mindset” is that consumer electronics are relatively cheap today. You can get an absolutely amazing television set for a few hundred dollars today, especially compared to that B&W set my family had in the 1970s. So there’s no longer a market for home electronics repair. But there is the “maker” culture, 3D printing, robots and drones. It seems that Radio Shack could still be a viable store if they kept up with the latest technology fads.
Oh, yeah, 1980s Radio Shack was the best. Not only did they have everything you needed, but the people who worked there knew what they were doing, and could actually help you figure out what you needed for whatever your project was.
I want to move to your city.
I always enjoyed going in with my coupon for a free flashlight. The coupon came in the ad in the mail I got because I gave them my address. Of course, they’d try to sell me the batteries. I’d usually let them sell me the cheap ones.
Radio Shack sold good car stereo speakers back in the eighties. They were overpriced, unless they were on sale, but when they were on sale they went for 40-50% off which made them a good buy.
Back in '09, I read a way to add cruise control to my Yaris. It amounted to hooking up two momentary switches, a few resistors, and a reed switch. The parts cost me less than ten bucks at Radio Shack. It still works. Now, the only way I could get those parts would be to drive to a Fry’s 200+ miles away or order them online.
Yep, I miss the Shack.
Looks like there are 23 Radio Shacks throughout the islands here.
Daddy, what’s a cassette recorder?
The nearby Radio Shack is down to 60-80% off of everything.
Ironically, what’s left is what they used to be about - switches, bulbs, wiring, one-off batteries, like for your cordless home phone, & none of the shit they became later like RC {anything}.