RadioShack Phase E

I don't know if this has been posted here lately but otherwise I didn't want this RadioShack's bankruptcy to pass unnoticed. Similarly to Arduino, I love RadioShack and having purchased from them for years I feel very sad about to see them disappear from the market after 94 years serving everyone, from the middle school student to the post-grad hobbyist. Desperate customers carrying huge bags full of 75, 80 and 90% sale discounted stuff. Mismanagement? Surely. It's the law of the strongest.

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Haven't bought much from Radio Shack in a while.
Now they are selling everything at massive discounts including all the store fixtures.
Almost bought their parts bin with sliding drawers.
Sad to see them go, but they haven't been the classic Radio Shack store in a long time.
Mostly a cell phone store.

I sometimes pick up an item of two if I needed them right away. I doubt any company will purchase the bankrupted RS and reorganize it for hobby shop that they used to be (I have no experience though). It would be so nice to have a hobby shop chain to stand out against consumer electronics chain(s). If somehow I come by a few billion dollars, I'll take over the store fronts and turn them into hacker space type of places with a store front selling all sorts of hobby electronics parts and tools. Offer classes to kids and grownups, circuits, using tools, electronics, programming, robots, sensors, physics too. I just need a few billion dollars. Thinking about going to kickstarter right now :wink:

One of the Google guys is retiring, maybe you can take his place for a couple of years:

"The retirement plans of Google Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette, 52, who announced Tuesday that he wanted more time to travel with his wife, have no doubt stirred the fantasies of others who would love to exit the workforce early."

Right I forgot google. Apple and ms both have stores, google should get rs store fronts and sell their stuff plus raspberry pi stuff.

What does google sell besides ad space on websites?

CrossRoads:
What does google sell besides ad space on websites?

Tried to sell chromebooks and google glasses. Cromebooks don't sell well and google glasses are discontinued. Also thinking about selling google cars. Android nexus tablets and phones are selling alright although the price on the tablet is unrealistically high compared with more capable but $200 only win8 tablets everywhere. Not sure what they will try to sell next. Andriod tablets will probably become history in a few years. They are expensive and can't run real applications.

I actually wrote to RS management a year ago and suggested they get more involved in the DIY, and Maker communities. They actually wrote back and said it was a plan, but it looks like their lousy financing deal got them in trouble with the sharks and they ran out of time. Too little too late. Now they are just shark meat. They have always been a bit confused however. They sold common anode 7-seg displays and common cathode drivers, and wondered why neither sold? Their motto was always "you have questions... we have guesses!" or something like that, with what must have been zero training of their employees.

Now would seem to be such a great time for a hobby store to stock some of these items, but the internet is a tough competitor to any retail startup without a service component. Oh well. Times change. I guess I will just have to finally dump my TRS-80 computer, throw away my Battery of the Month card and go get my radio tubes checked someplace else.

DIY store is pretty hard to stay afloat. The two RS stores in my area already disappeared. I wish someone will lease one of the locations and start a DIY hub/store there. We are representing every chain restaurant you can find in the US of A here in town, applebee, red lobster, texas road house, fridays, olive garden, you name it (no outback, though) but there is next to zero effort in the area to do anything out of the ordinary. Yet, all these restaurant parking lots are filled around dinner time over weekends so people have extra money to spend!

There was a 3D print shop in town that started around 2012. I was just checking it out now and it has disappeared. Web site unreachable and the two owners are doing something else now (according to linked in). FYI, there are three colleges/universities in the area and one has a decent ECE program. Maybe a real metro with some mil of residents will be different.

In the uk we have maplins which is similar to rs, who used to be here also.

Not all do components these days.

The hobby seems to be diminishing somewhat.

Personally these days i find myself using sm components more than through hole , so often i have to order rather than local shop although its still useful.
They survive mainly on consumer electronics these days , acessories for telly , phone ,electrical, and a lot of toys.

Im grateful they still cater for the enthusiast but think that those days are coming to an end.
They are the only one left, most of the small stores started dissapearing about 20 years ago.

RadioShack in the US isn't disapearing completely. About a fourth of their stores will remain open, funded by a venture capitalist group. As I understand it, their goal is to turn the brand into an electronic "convenience store."

It's sad to see, but on the upside I scored a Yún today for $32US.

Boardburner2:
In the uk we have maplins which is similar to rs, who used to be here also.

The RS in the UK is Radio Spares. They are not, as far as I'm aware, part of the US Radio Shack group.
They are still very much in business.

Maplins are handy, but are pricey.
I can get 10 items (DB15 VGA plugs) from China for less than two of the same item from Maplins.
That is, of course, if my local Maplins has any in stock.

I meant the old radio shack not rs components.

May have been called tandy , but cannot remember now.

No arguments on price, but still handy for the odd missing component.

As a youngster, bits could be had from telly repair places etc .All gone now though.

In the Netherlands we once had some Radio Shack / Tandy stores too, but i think that's about some 30 years ago.
They have long been gone.

Last chain of shops like these over here was "Display Electronics", which about all have been gone too.
The company was taken over a few year back by Distrelec, the shops were closed.

Boardburner2:
I meant the old radio shack not rs components.

May have been called tandy , but cannot remember now.

Ah! Tandy. They were, I believe, taken over by Maplins several years ago.

No arguments on price, but still handy for the odd missing component.

If they have what you need and know what you want. I once spent half an hour trying to get them to sell me a 7812. I asked for a 12 volt regulator and the assistant came back with a part for a car that wasn't much smaller than a car battery!

As a youngster, bits could be had from telly repair places etc .All gone now though.

Yes indeed. There was a place called The Television Graveyard, in North London, where you had to climb over piles of expired TVs to find what you wanted. Then there was Proops, in Tottenham Court Road, where weird, wonderful and unidentifiable bits, mostly war surplus, were sold. Both long gone now.

Tons of war surplus are still taking enormous space in my department. Some staff long retired now used to get stuff from war surplus and harvest parts then sort them out. Most of them are useless now. There is always resistance from the faculty to get rid of the junk.

Hi,

We had Tandy here in Australia, they finally were bought by Dick Smith Electronics.
Which now has gone from how it started, about 45years ago, parts parts and parts, to IPOD IPHONE MOBILE PHONE. Whats a resistor?

I'm luck where I live, a good parts supplier, Wiltronics, locally owned, 10minutes away, even closer when I'm at work.
And they sell, Arduino, Freetronics etc etc, a management that caters for the education system as well as commercial world, and stock Jaycar and Altronics as well.

RS and E14(farnell) can over night deliver if in stock and ordered online before 5.00pm.
RS free overnight freight, E14 over $50, free overnight.

Tom..... :slight_smile:
(We don't know how lucky we are, we do not now fortuitous our situation.)
But.....when I was a lad, down't mine....

Tom, I guess I should complain then. I have digikey in my backyard. You just reminded me of that mentioning E14.

[quote author=Henry_Best link=msg=2183273 date=1428804467
Both long gone now.

[/quote]

Proops are still going strong, just not in tottenham court road.
Expensive property these days.

Online , rs etc have excellent service if you can meet moq/min order.
Once had an order from digikey in us.
18 hours order to delivery in uk , !

Boardburner2:
Proops are still going strong, just not in tottenham court road.

Thanks. I just had a look at their website. They still sell weird and wonderful things, but not war surplus any longer.