According to a recent news article, it appears that Radio Shack will soon be going out of business. I can't say that I'm surprised.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Times are changing. I think it also shows the danger of renting instead of owning your own building. It also shows the effects of the big box store and competition from Amazon.

I also question why someone should want to drive out to the mall for a part when maybe they should stockpile cheap parts instead.

I feel a little mixed about it but they were gouging customers on products that they bought from somewhere else and marking them up exorbitantly.

It is a good time to bargain with the store manager. My old manager asked for a lower price from a sports store that was closing and said, "Who cares? You won't have a job." But on the other hand, I was in a store with overpriced items on sale so 30% off of an over inflated priced item that is $80 when it should be lower is the kind of sales that I see. Even when stores go out of business, they want something for a lot or you can't have it.

I study prices and some stores have the same price all year long whether the item goes on sale or not.

I think Radio Shack grew into something that it wasn't so they lost their way.

Not a surprise. I was in one up in Urbana with my daughter last year. We needed a simple phone jack. The parts selection was abysmal and the quality was worse. The staff didn't even know what a phone jack was. It is a sign of the times unfortunately, and yes, RS tried to morph into something they're not good at and don't seem to have a staff capable of supporting anything they do sell.

It's not just RS... Lafayette went out decades ago, Heathkit is long gone and all of the small local private electronic parts suppliers have gone out of business as well over the past couple decades. The electronic hobbyist is all but gone and the majority of consumer electronic products are designed and built to be disposable, so they're not worth fixing when they break, nor can you reasonably get the parts if you could fix them.

I stock a ton of parts... and still buy stuff regularly from Mouser and a couple others. My parts include lots of stuff for vacuum tube gear, so tons of NOS parts and of course the newer solid state stuff for my 65xx and other related hobbies. It's becoming a lost art with younger kids who prefer to bury their heads in a smartphone, computer or video game and become socially inept.

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Regards, KM
https://github.com/floobydust

It's unhappy news, and I suppose there are a lot of reasons for it, but some are their own fault, like charging five times what they should for small parts, and going after more consumer-type stuff which people are more likely to go elsewhere for, whether it's a cell-phone center, a Target, Fry's, or similar. When we came back to the States in '74, I was delighted to discover Radio Shack, Lafayette, and similar stores. Radio Shack was buzzing with activity. (Today it's dead.) I got their paper catalogs every year as soon as they came out, took care of them, and referred to the regularly. I specifically remember many of the ones seen at http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/ . And of course they took the address of everyone who bought there and mailed you lots of sale flyers. I was delighted when one of them announced that a particular VOM (the one shown on my math look-up tables page at http://wilsonminesco.com/16bitMathTables/index.html) which I had been drooling over as a poor mid-teenager was reduced to half price, and I bought it. Their staff's neat dress code and neck ties did not add any intelligence though. Besides the fact that they didn't know anything technical, when they asked for my address for the receipt, I'd tell them 11012 as "eleven thousand twelve" and they could never get the right number of zeroes in it. Now when I go in there and know exactly where what I want is, they try to be friendly and intercept me and ask if they can help. I want to tell them, "I've been shopping at Radio Shack since your parents were riding their Lemon Peeler" (or maybe that should be "burro"). What I really tell them though is the RS stock number and point to where it is. (BDD could go back further that I in the timeline than I.) People today have no idea what a radio shack (ham shack) is.


They've been saying they're in the process of designing a line of kits and they're coming back; but we don't hear much. They say they'd rather spend their time doing that than further delaying it by spending their time answering the questions of those who will/would like to see it back. See https://www.facebook.com/heathcompany?f ... le_browser


One privately owned electronics store that was near us for decades had the walk-in business all dry up as the local community college and high schools quit teaching electronics and the TV and stereo repair business dried up as people just throw out the old and buy a new one a the big-box electronics stores. The owner was doing plenty of distributor business by drop-shipping, which he could do from home, so he closed the shop.


Same here. I have somewhere between a quarter million and a half million parts, many of them being from the company I work for just disposing of them when they quit doing thru-hole for most products, and also every time I order parts, I get extras.


Agreed. It's a shame. Where will tomorrow's engineers come from? SMT is not helping the situation, as it makes it harder for hobbyists to get interested.

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

In the UK Radio Shack, or Tandy as it was called here, disappeared decades ago. We still have a chain called Maplin but they are similarly over priced and whilst they were once an electronics shop more of the store is now turned over to PC spares and household items than it used to be.

I only go to Maplin when I want something immediately. I'll pay the higher price if I can't afford to wait for it to arrive in the post.

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Andrew Jacobs
6502 & PIC Stuff - http://www.obelisk.me.uk/
Cross-Platform 6502/65C02/65816 Macro Assembler - http://www.obelisk.me.uk/dev65/
Open Source Projects - https://github.com/andrew-jacobs

Like in the UK Tandy disappeared decades ago in the Netherlands and I did not miss them at all. Even in those days the shops were low quality and small inventory and the people behind the counter were not very educated.
Heathkit also had a shop here, high quality but expensive kits. Also disappeared quickly.

In my youth (1965!) I remember visiting an electronics shop in Amsterdam called Aurora Kontakt Vijzelstraat regularly to replace a blown up transistor used in my experiments with a Philips educational kit EE8. It still exists, selling lamp bulps and such.
Electronic shops were a big thing in the Netherlands 70ties and 80ties of the previous century. Mail order, physical visits, lots of parts easy to get.

That also dried up in the 90ties, when PCs took over the world and electronic magazines and shops disappeared due to lack of interest. For me it also ended my career as writer for electronics journals and the KIM-1 was put in storage.

But I see things happening that make me think positive about the future of electronics as a hobby and a profession.
Arduino and the hype around the Raspberry Pi, combined with the ease of ebay with low cost chinese sellers, reach out to young and older people who combine programming, computers and electronics.

So I am back now with building 6502 systems, using PCs as development systems and low cost Arduino and Raspberry Pi boards as peripherals!

I see some (not here, but elsewhere) grumble about Arduino users not really working with electronics, they're just putting modules together.. but I too see that as positive. Firstly, I believe many of them actually do learn something real. And secondly, just as Microsoft and Windows made it possible to get cheap Unix/Linux workstations by increasing the sale of PCs to huge numbers and thus lowering the price of PCs to nothing (compared to what they used to be), the Arduino movement makes it possible for me to find small items for nearly everything for nearly no cost, on Ebay.. all marked "for Arduino!". Bluetooth units, serial converters, small LED displays.. almost everything imaginable. For something like $5, or just $0.99, free shipping. All hail Arduino, and the Pi redefined the ARM and small board market. Millions of sales.. that helps.

With the surge of the modern "maker" movement, RS should have also had a resurgence. I know they did some polls years ago where the vast consensus from consumers was for them to start stocking Arduino style hardware, and have subject matter competent employees again. It's a real failing on their own part not to rekindle some of their glory days.

There were enough Radio Shacks around that it could have easily reestablished these locations as hubs of hackerspaces and hobbyists of all sorts again. Imagine if RSes had 3d printers that customers could pay per use, etc.

I have no idea how they stayed alive as long as they did by selling toys and phones that you can get everywhere else cheaper.

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WFDis Interactive 6502 Disassembler
AcheronVM: A Reconfigurable 16-bit Virtual CPU for the 6502 Microprocessor

Maplin have added some Arduino and PI stuff to thier stock but is incredably expensive compared to the ebay/aliexpress equivalent.

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Andrew Jacobs
6502 & PIC Stuff - http://www.obelisk.me.uk/
Cross-Platform 6502/65C02/65816 Macro Assembler - http://www.obelisk.me.uk/dev65/
Open Source Projects - https://github.com/andrew-jacobs

I vaguely remember the days when people were in line to buy short wave radios, Ham radios, etc. It was crowded around Christmas. I guess you can blame the cell phone for the diminished need for Ham radios. Today I can connect somewhere without the need for a Ham radio or walkie talkie.

I also remember the days of the TRS-80 and they probably had no less than 6-8 customers staring at the computers switched on behind the counter. They kind of bragged they were first.

I also remember being part of the battery club. I guess it was a gimmick.

I also had a 75 in one electronic kit and I had a radio kit from them. The kits were educational and brought parents in. Today, some parents and kids are in the Gamestop line instead of the educational line.

Today, I would be accosted by a sales person asking to find me something when what I really wanted to do is browse and think about products and make up my own mind without pressure sales.

You can also blame the malls. They did extensive surveys and found out how much customers spend and as a result, it costs a lot of money to keep a mall store open. One bookstore in the mall made lots of money but after paying the mall, they made $100 profit one year. You would be scared to start a business at the mall because they fine the store if they open late or close early. They charge double the rent around holidays and they are in the store owner's pocket. They made a pet store move three times in one year and they went bankrupt not because they weren't making the money but because it is expensive to remodel. When you bought a high priced product, you were paying the mall's rent.

Radio Shack became a retail store instead of a computer store or electronics giant. Instead of salesmen having something to show you like their newest computer, it became high pressure sales.

I think Radio Shack sold a lot of outside t.v. antennas for houses and today the dish network, cable and FIOS took away that business. When an industry they use to sold disappears, you have to find new products to sell and cell phones couldn't do it for them forever.

I think the problem today is that Radio Shack doesn't make anything so no one has to go directly to them. Back in the day, if you wanted a Color Computer, you had to go to them.

Summary: Radio Shack lost the customers in line that was there for the TRS-80, the customer line for the Ham Radios and educational kits. They lost the antenna market for house televisions. They became a retail store and because you can get the same products at Amazon, there was fewer customers that didn't need to shop at home.

Yep, I remember various fads over the years that RS jumped in on--CB radio (which is not ham radio), disco, home computers, stereos (with turntables and tape machines), landline phones after you could own your own (instead of the phone company owning it) (this was before cell phones), etc., plus TV antennas, calculators, kits, and others. And it seems like they used to have more components for hobbyists, although it could be partly that my perspective has changed as I myself have advanced. How times have changed. I wish I had kept a lot of the RS catalogs over the years since I discovered RS for myself in 1974.

_________________
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

After RadioShack Dies, There Will Still Be 1,000 Unchanged RadioShacks

"... more than 1,000 franchised RadioShack locations will be virtually untouched by the grim news for the company, selling the same old batteries and gadgets as before—at least for now."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... adioshacks

This is at least some good news then. I use them on occasion. I bought a few items from them this past year when I didn't have the patience to wait for an online order delivery.

I like(d) their 300/200/100 projects in 1 electronics kits from years ago!
They used to have different levels as I remember. Recently, I had wanted to get my 10 yr old son into electronics (start 'em young!), but all they have now, here at least, is only 1 option to buy the biggest kit. It was too complicated for a ten year old so I didn't buy it.

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65Org16:https://github.com/ElEctric-EyE/verilog-6502

One of these franchises is about 10 miles from my location. They have some stuff that dates back to when Michael Faraday was a young man.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

I would love to see pictures or a website about it. There must be a lot of history in there.

If Radio Shack had tables and taught classes on something like soldering, Raspberry Pi, microcontrollers, electronics, etc., it might cause people to come in and they could sell something on the side and maybe the visitors might buy something in the store.

They need a product they make. They can't just be a retail store. If I can buy the same product online for cheaper, what right do they have to stay in business? Only those who need it now and those who have a lot of money will do business with them. Frugal people like me will only buy something that is cheaper than everyone else and is on sale. My wife actually won't buy something unless it is on sale and that is how we save money or else we won't be able to afford a lot of stuff.

They need the toy of the year to sell so to speak. They need blockbuster items to sell. It has to be something new and cutting edge. Part of selling is showing someone something new and not just pressuring them to buy.

They almost need to be a distributor of something others can't get. How many people would visit if they were a local hackerspace? How many people would visit to use a 3D printer? I bet it would draw some people in who have money to spend, who will stay around and will buy, buy buy.

They also need to own their own building because they are losing money when they have to rent.

The problem I think is the owners have too much experience because they are afraid of losing out, they know everything so they won't try something new and as a result they are inflexible. Blessed are the flexible because they won't be broken.

It is a shame the maker community talked to them and RS couldn't make a go at it. The maker community is making millions. It is frustrating.
Other people go to business, they see a challenge and they get to work and make stuff happen. My boss does the same, it can be scary but they make millions.