For the past month or so, the clerks at the Radio Shack on Needham Street have been insisting that their store-wide inventory clearance sale was only an inventory clearance sale. But this week, they finally admitted that they are indeed closing for good.
I am terribly, terribly saddened to see the loss of this chain. As someone who knows his way around a soldering iron, I have very fond memories of walking with my Father to our local RS near where I grew up to pick up parts, cables, and tools. I remember getting in trouble for disassembling a set of Radio Shack walkie talkies (and blaming it on my sister). I also learned to write code on a TRS-80 model III (a computer which no one else will likely remember). And yes, I was a member of the Radio Shack battery of the month club.
But, times changed and the company never figured out its place in the new marketplace. Was it a computer company? A mobile phone re-seller? A consumer electronics company? A store for battery powered toys? All and none, as it turns out.
FWIW, the store does still have a good collection of cables and batteries on heavy clearance. It’s worth the trip if you need, and also if – like me – you need a healthy dose of nostalgia.
And then, please make sure to support You-Do-It over in Needham!
Great memories of TRS-80s.
In high school, we used them in our computer class. At the end of the course, we had a demo of all of our projects. One of my classmates loaded up his program. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing.
All semester long, he’d saved his program religiously. For the last class, he brought in a new cassette to make sure he had no problems. But, he neglected to get leaderless tape. Lost the head of the file, so nothing would load.
Ah, yes! The tape leader! We always used a pencil to manually wind the tape just past the leader. Accomplished the same thing.
I’m confused. I’m pretty sure that in that shopfront, I saw a pop-up place that sold Halloween costumes in October, full-price calendars in December, and half-price calendars in January. Now I learn they were selling beepers and related paraphernalia during the other nine months. No wonder that they were never able to get a clear branding message across to their clientele!
I’m wondering what’s coming instead. Please, God, not a nail salon.
@Michael, you’re referring to the storefront next to the Radio Shack. RS has been in that spot for years.
Way back in the 1970’s I worked at the Radio Shack on American Legion Highway (Mattapan/Roslindale). As Chris said they were always wrestling with what business they were in. At that time they were branded as “the supermarket of sound” but their main business was selling CB radios, during the 1970’s CB radio craze.
Category: things I refuse to believe.
Item: Jerry was old enough to work in the 70’s.