Radio Shack Catalogs

I have a few in my collection...



http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

shack catalogs

Is that your site? If so, I want to thank you! Great for research and just reminiscing.

dave

Theodore said:

I have a few in my collection...



http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

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Man, I remember getting the catalogs in the mail, I always enjoyed looking over them, planning yet another purchase...

Saw some of my purchases in a couple of those catalogs... thanks for putting them online.

boombox4 said:

Man, I remember getting the catalogs in the mail, I always enjoyed looking over them, planning yet another purchase...

Saw some of my purchases in a couple of those catalogs... thanks for putting them online.

Click to expand...

Same here. As a kid, I'd spend hours with the new RS catalog when it first arrived, and even more time with it throughout the year planning projects and stuff I wanted to build, with me begging my parents at least once every few weeks to take me to one of 3 relatively nearby Radio Shack stores to buy stuff. JC Whitney used to also be a favorite catalog around that same time. Once I got into radio broadcasting, our Chief Engineer was happy to share where he got his project cases with sloped fronts (as opposed to the Radio Shack ones which were just "boxes"), component-level stuff, etc. Once the internet came into play in the mid-90s, I was able to find parts and components for MUCH cheaper than Radio Shack, and I'd also quickly learned that things like the audio mixers and amplifiers RS was selling were cheaper, consumer-grade products and while inexpensive, weren't pro-quality at all, despite their claims. I still got the RS catalog and visited their stores, though less and less often, probably up through the late 1990s. The last time I set foot in a Radio Shack was I think 2014 when they were offering a free iPhone upgrade if you had a certain older model iPhone, all one had to pay was the tax.

The Radio Shack catalog page is back, with a nearly complete collection and excellent on-screen viewing. Not downloadable, but fun to look at on line.

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

One of the things I enjoy about perusing these old catalogs (besides bringing back lots of memories) is seeing how rudimentary and bulky lots of technology from computers and laptops to cell phones and hand-held radios looked back then compared to now, seeing how far technologies have come in a relatively short amount of time all things considered, and also how expensive some things were, especially for relatively basic and simplified versions of tech we have available today, which nowadays can be found so much cheaper, especially with a lot of Asian manufacturers selling more or less direct, even through sites like Amazon and eBay.

That said, in seeing this, I also miss being able to look something up in the catalog and go right out to a retail store and buy such a wide range of things that Radio Shack once carried. Much of these types of items are only available via the internet now, unless can find a specialty store open in your area. While I realize the Web is a wonderful tool when making purchases, and it allows one to see and peruse a lot more variety, compare pricing from several companies and manufacturers and in many cases express shipping is free, there was also something great about going into a retail store like RS and hands on playing with several models. It was also a good source to be able to buy stuff quickly on the fly to solve problems or make repairs when needed.

I remember salivating over some of that stuff. So many good memories.

I’m glad someone preserved all of these. I still have my original copy of the 1986 catalog.

This story is from the Washington Post. For some RD users that story may be behind a paywall, so I've linked to it via Google:

Remember RadioShack? It's now a crypto company with wild tweets​

Gen Z may not be familiar with the RadioShack of their grandparents, but they're getting to know its replacement. The 100-year-old retailer reintroduced itself on Twitter this week with a stream of often-profane tweets - some since deleted - filled with crude comments and drug references.
Variations of, "What in the world is going on?" peppered the comment threads, but a glance of the company's Twitter profile partly held the answer: RadioShack is no longer the electronics store Americans ran to for generations, but rather an online cryptocurrency company that also happens to sell batteries.

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"It's our voice, a new voice, one for the people," said Abel Czupor, the chief marketing officer. "RadioShack's audience used to be only an older demographic, but as times have changed and e-commerce has taken over, the old voice of RadioShack is no longer relevant."

Following a decade of decline, RadioShack was delisted by New York Stock Exchange in 2015. In its struggle to find a brand identity, the chain filed for bankruptcy twice, and went from having roughly 5,200 U.S. stores in 2014 to about 400 when private equity firm Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV) purchased it in 2020.

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Mikey Radio said:

This story is from the Washington Post. For some RD users that story may be behind a paywall, so I've linked to it via Google:

Remember RadioShack? It's now a crypto company with wild tweets​

Remember RadioShack? It's now a crypto company with wild tweets

Gen Z may not be familiar with the RadioShack of their grandparents, but they're getting to know its replacement. The 100-year-old retailer reintroduced itself on Twitter this week with a stream of often-profane tweets - some since deleted - filled with crude comments and drug references...

www.yahoo.com

Click to expand...

Dang the new RadioShack is a crypto investment company.