“RadioShack used to be great,” wrote former employee John Boyce. SB Nation’s Top Stories of 2014“When you look at our catalogs from decades ago, you get no other impression. We sold huge walnut speakers that you would absolutely love to have now. We sold computers when people were just trying to figure out what a computer was. When I was a kid, going to Radio Shack was more fun than going to a toy store. Radio Shack was a toy store for tall people.” But by the mid-2000s, Radio Shack had become a “panic-stricken, half-dead retail empire”, finally filing for bankruptcy in 2015.
Still, the catalogs are available for free browsing. Digital Archives at Radioshackcatalogs.com. Vol. 1 Published in 1939, the catalog was already 17 years after Radio Shack (originally called Radio Shack) was founded. “This catalog is a comprehensive and accurate listing of what we consider to be the essential and specialized requirements of the amateur radio operator, the serviceman, the laboratory, the industry and the schools,” the opening letter to customers stated. “To boast of our services is an entirely meaningless phrase, since service is the hallmark of our growth.”
By the time Bois was there, neither service nor growth were hallmarks of the company, but it’s been a pretty glorious journey. RadioShack Catalog It’s a true testament to witnessing the evolution of American consumer electronics: initially aimed at the tech-savvy, the company’s products expanded over the decades to appeal to hobbyists and then to regular folks looking for a bit of electronics and, later, digital enrichment for their work and personal lives.
Some Americans discovered Radio Shack because they were building crystal radios or science fair projects as kids, others started frequenting Radio Shack stores while putting together their first real hi-fi systems, piece by piece, and still others got interested in personal computers through the store’s branded TRS-80 (or “Trash 80” as more serious computer nerds called it). My grandfather was a Radio Shack regular, and when he passed away in the early ’90s, our house was suddenly filled with products that were only available at Radio Shack, from Realistic Radios to Tandy computers. (I remember spending many happy hours at Radio Shack.) Model 100a primitive laptop that was heavily promoted as a “micro-executive workstation.”
“This is a consumer technology business that was built to work perfectly in 1975,” Bois wrote. And indeed, 1975 Radio Shack catalog Radio Shack introduced one fantastic product after another: remote-controlled stereos (“the height of luxury”), “Action Radios,” fiber-optic decorative lighting, an 8-track car tape recorder, a calculator that promised “a pocketful of miracles,” a homemade intercom, a pocket lie detector, and a “color organ.” But like many of the thriving commercial enterprises of the mid-20th century, Radio Shack failed to take advantage of the Internet and was ultimately crushed by it — a bitter irony for a company that had long been a one-stop technology shop. RadioShack catalog archives here.
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Based in Seoul, Colin MaOnershall Writing and broadcastingHe has written papers on cities, languages, and cultures, and his projects include the Substack newsletter. Books about cities And books A city without a state: Walking through 21st-century Los Angeles. Follow us on Twitter CollinhamOnershall or Facebook.
