Had a premonition this was going to happen back in about '78

Sprint saves Radio Shack from extinction  Uhm, why?

No, not the saving part...the bankruptcy part.

Back in the days when a Western Auto catalog was your prime competition during the Christmas shopping season, selling crap was a viable business model.

I recall being in a Radio Shack in the dawning days of personal computing when Commodore,  Apple and Tandy computers were the heavy hitters.**
Tandy computers being sold by Radio Shack seeing as they were part of the Electronics, computer and Leather? conglomerate.

I bought quite a bit of leather from Tandy as well. I miss the days when you could get a half cow hide for 90 bucks. But, I digress.

The premonition came when I walked up to the counter in a Radio Shack, Tandy computers displayed expensively around me, to pay for whatever the heck it was I was buying at the time.

The clerk pulled out a ball point pen and an invoice pad, replete with carbon paper, to write up my purchase before it was punched into the cash register.

Innocently, I stated, " I find it odd that you don't use your own computers for invoicing"

Time froze.
I heard a pin drop a hundred yards away out in the mall food court.

The manager and two clerks behind the counter expressed such a hurt look on their faces.
I, expected upon such observation, to feel "bad".  Surprisingly, I did not.

That experience, and having bought three electronics kits from them previously convinced me Radio Shack was headed down the tube.

By the time my Daughter was born in 1989, Tandy was out of the computer business.

How they survived this long escapes me.  When I'm thinking of purchasing electronics of any type, Radio Shack is not a name that even remotely shows up on my radar scope.











** Mein Got, were they expensive back then.  Particularly if you factor in inflation since, say 1983. $2500 for an Apple IIe with 64k of ram and a squirrel speed walking in a rodent wheel for a processor. No such thing as a hard drive. Storage was two external 5 1/4" floppy drives. But, it was cutting edge technology and I effing paid the price tag to get it. Booyah.

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