When I was a lad I used to build electronic stuff. Almost all my parts came from Radio Shack. In the back of the store were many walls full of parts. I miss those days. 
I still occasionally build stuff, and fortunately I live in “electronic parts surplus” heaven (greater Dayton, OH, area). Here locally we have Mendelsons, Midwest Surplus, Parts Express, and MCM.
The thing about trying to order a particular or specific product online, is you google and every online establishment in the free world pops up in the search, then you go there and it says, “We don’t have THAT but while you’re here, hows about THIS?”
Oh, I completely agree with you. I wasn’t trying to sound disparaging with the “throw-away mindset” comment. It’s just a paradigm shift in the electronics industry, with upsides and downsides, and The Shack was one of the casualties.
Every electronic buff I knew back in West Texas turned their noses up at Radio Shack, so I always assumed they weren’t very good, but it sounds like they had a lot of fans in this thread. I don’t know where those guys I knew got their stuff.
I really miss Lafayette Radio Electronics. They closed right as I was getting into my electronic hobbyist phase. But their store was cool. My father bought me a Texas Instruments TI-something or other for $20. The battery was half the size of a cigarette package.
Yes! We had one of those to record prank calls, another thing killed by modern technology (called ID).
The 50s and 60s were the hey-day of DIY electronics, Radio Shack were just one of many firms that catered to that crowd. Kits of all kinds were a way to save money. Dynaco 70 Stereo Amplifier $99 kit, $120 factory wired. While the cork sniffers disparaged the Realistic house brand, some of it was actually pretty good stuff. Once transistors became obsolete, and electronics became too complex to work with to some degree, the DIY stuff went away. Wise guys right up to the end enjoyed returning “Lifetime Warranty” vacuum tubes to RS just for the grins. They would generally honor this, although certain tubes have become stupid expensive.
One of my HS buddies was into all kinds of trouble, his parents were very strict as I recall. Turns out they (or his dad anyway) had recorded all his phone conversations. He showed me dozens and dozens of casette tapes. Weird. Well, Radio Shack giveth, and Radio Shake taketh away. He wanted a way to erase them. I didn’t ask what was on them, but he ended up buying the Realistic Bulk Tape Eraser. It was a serious heavy duty magnet, one pass through it, and it’s all gone. He was able to wipe them all in about thirty seconds. Have always wondered what his dad’s reaction must have been.
The Australian equivalent of Radio Shack (Tandy) fell over spectacularly a few years ago along with its sister company Dick Smith Electronics, but they’d stopped stocking resisters and diodes etc long before that. If you needed batteries, RCA cables, RF connectors and an SD card, they were your people though.
Fortunately there’s still a chain of specialist electronic shops about (JayCar) who handle all the serious hobbyist stuff - the sort of people who want to build a HAM radio completely from scratch and that sort of thing; their staff are very good too.
I see that in the professional world, as well. So I go look for an aircraft part for work. All the websites imply they have it, but they all say “call for quote”, which usually means, that, no, they don’t have it. In reality is, they’ll call someone else, who won’t have it, then that company will call someone else, and so on, until one of them calls me looking for it. No, I don’t have it either!
Radio shack stores were branded Tandy in the UK - and I loved them - I was very interested in hobby electronics at the time, and browsing their walls of electronic components was like visiting a sweet shop.
They used to send out a monthly magazine/catalogue that usually had a voucher for something free that you could get just by walking into the store - often it was a set of shitty screwdrivers or something like that, but still, free stuff! I’m assuming they did that in the USA too? - what was the best free gift?
Edited to add: Maplin is the nearest UK high street equivalent now - and you can walk into their stores and buy a little bag of resistors or LEDs - but I think you have to go to a parts counter.
Still have my card. They owe me a ton of batteries by now!
We have a Shack a few doors down from General Dollar. A few times we’ve needed something basic like a TV cable or connector; I usually go to RS first, as I’m a child of the '70s and I feel a bit of loyalty to them. Almost inevitably, though, I end up at the Dollar store and pay roughly $6,342.87 less for the same cable (and DS carries the RCA brand, as does my Shack).
I find it fascinating how RS stays in business. Is it witchcraft?
I thought they were bankrupt and gone.
Worth mentioning again:
There are a couple of them near me. I have no idea how they stay in business. The parking lot is generally completely empty at the one near my house.
Perhaps they know what a 12V CT transformer is.
As mentioned, there are 23 in Hawaii.
