Radio Shack bigotry : C/D/S/D

home of convertors from anything to anything.

Also, their shit is marked up too high.

Tandy will always rull as the home of the archer mini-amp, inadvertent king of guitar fuzzboxen.

A good few years ago I moidered my parents for ages to get me a remote controlled car. So I got one for Christmas, but it was radioshack, and the steering on it was so crap and the power wasn't much better, I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in anything in my life.

Their cables are totally garbage usually too, except the stuff you buy on the spool, which is no worse than spool cables anywhere else in my experience. I paid way too much for an RJ45 crimping tool there once.

I like things like Realistic, I think they were sold in Radio Shack? I have a copy of a Casio Sk-1 it works fine.

Is that better?

http://www.activ-analog.com/MG-1.jpg

Only thing is ... I just went to look for it to take a picture of it, and I can't find the fucker. Hmmm. I wonder if I lent it to someone....

Their electronic components are especially overpriced.

I have an Archer 43-231 and a few other Realistic synth clones and cheap mixers and stuff. There are a lot of older Realistic pieces worth owning still, but the sad fact is that the vast majority of the stuff they make now is crap.

And when it is functional (like some of their mixers or whatever), it costs more than it's worth.

http://www.tonymason.com/casio/cm500.cfm

I usually only to RS for watch batteries.

They have certainly helped me out in certain situations, but I do remember being asked for my phone number or some such shit last time I was there.

Hahaha, she's a total goth. :-)

oh, and radio shack is totally awful. i don't even think they sell tone dialers anymore.

http://www.1000bit.net/lista/dati/tandy/tandy1000_ad2.jpg

that seems like a pretty good deal when you read it.

Is that actually Bill Bixbyor am I just straining too hard for the possibility of a Hulk related joke?
Anyway, no Tandy in the UK anymore, but modern day Maplin >>>>>>>>> 80's Tandy by a mile. Even the woman who does that "Queen of Shops" TV show was impressed.

That is actually bill bixby.

Also, I love Radio Shack because they have wires and gadgets and good deals on cell phones.

i have used a radio shack PZM mic (in conjunction w/other mics) on every grand piano i have ever mixed live, and i wouldn't trade it for anything.

however, the ineptitude of their sales staff when it comes to basic stuff like not selling people fuses that are 10 times the replacement rating or power supplies that are the correct AC or DC variety is pretty infuriating. helps our repair business tho, so keep it up my RS brothers!

they sell lots of useful little stuff that you can't find anywhere

Radio Shack has really let me down in recent years. They've cleared out most of their electronic components to make way for cell phones and shit. Their employees are pretty unqualified as well -- I remember once I asked about PS2-to-USB adapters and the guy told me that he didn't think they exist. But that was only after I explained to him I wasn't talking about a Playstation 2...

And you don't have to give them your real zip code.

the guy told me that he didn't think they exist.

The salesman at my local RS told me the stylus I needed didn't exist, so I just went home and ordered it online.

i've been looking at this for like an hour. totally fascinating!
http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalogs/1961/

too bad it's all cell phones and big tvs now. back in the day they would've had like a big tv, but you had to build it yourself from a kit

They used to sell VEX robotics, kind of like Lego Mindstorms.

xpost a number of old posts

My first computer was a TRS-80, c. 1978 or so.

Tandy was actually the name of the leatherworking supplies company that bought out Radio Shack several decades ago. No, I can't figure that one out either.

Apparently Radio Shack is a pretty hellish company to work for, very nastily competive. That is probably the reason for the bad service you all have been getting there.

the guy told me that he didn't think they exist.

The salesman at my local RS told me the stylus I needed didn't exist, so I just went home and ordered it online.

I once went in asking for liquid electrical tape, and the dude actually laughed at me, like that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard and he just couldn't hide his amusement.

And of course he informed me, quite authoritatively, that there is no such thing. Maybe that's what they're trained to say. Anyway, Home Depot had it.

Sign of the times: there's a Radio Shack that's still open (even recently remodeled!) in the shopping center nearby, right next to what was a Blockbuster until sometime last year.

Picked up cheap copies of End of Evangelion and Tokyo Godfathers at the Going Out of Business sell-off, cuz I'm a huge weeaboo apparently.

my dad was a store manager at Radio Shack for years, until they eventually demoted him to a salesman after over a decade of work. he basically said things that were intimated higher up in the thread.

But hey, Radio Shack brought me my first computer, a Tandy 1000TX, while everybody else in school had....better ones. But I got to use Deskmate! And print stuff on paper with feed attached to it! and could play Black cauldron!1!!!!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/even-ceo-cant-figure-out-how-radioshack-still-in-b,2190/ One of their finest hours.

Radio Shack employees are the stupidest of the retail class - geeks with no social skills who are obviously too dumb to get a real tech job. They never have any idea where anything is located in the store, then once we walk back over to the general area I was just looking at, wait for me to play Where's Waldo and find it for them.

and no, I don't need any extra fucking batteries

but their Electronics Cleaner spray is the total shit. Revived so many dead and grotty electronics with that stuff - old amps, pedals, radios, stereos, it's like magic.

That's because it's leprechaun piss. Just go to any other electronics place and buy some Lucky's Own brand leprepiss. I guarantee you it's cheaper than buying it from the "The Shack".

Also, PETA reports that Radio Shack gets their leprechaun urine from so-called "pixie mills" where magical creatures of all kinds are forced into small wooden cubicles and fed beer through a tube shoved in their throats.

Subsequently their meat is made into pet food and mcnuggets.

I like Radio Shack, I like all their adapters and shit.

Every Radio Shack I have been in lately has been like 90% cell phones.

Really?? That is too bad. I love old man stuff like weather radios and scanners. What if there is a bad storm and all the power goes out.

On Friday, I waited for 15 minutes at Radio Shack while no one bothered to help me. Then I left.

Fuckin' stoners.

heh the only time i've ever shoplifted was while waiting in line for 5+ minutes at a RadioShack while both doofus clerks were talking on phones in the back.

cuz that's acceptable

nah just one of those things you do when you're young and dumb

The store is collapsing, around our ears
We sell parts for radios

It's not exactly a hot take, but Jon Bois's 2014 essay on the surreal and exploitative working conditions at RadioShack is kind of wonderful: https://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/26/7281129/radioshack-eulogy-stories

I hate 'em cuz they always ask for my name and address and phone number.

Yeah, I remember Tandy doing this when I was a kid and Tandy still existed in the UK. Never really knew why, it's not like they ever called or sent anything in the post. It was weird though because this is not normal in the UK. istr that some stores in the US used to request your phone number if you paid by cheque?

So this:

I hate 'em cuz they always ask for my name and address and phone number

isn't a joke? It's a real thing? One of the very few Seinfeld jokes I never got was this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgfaYKoQxzQ

They all crack up. Is it because Kramer's remark is just his typical 'out there' reply, or is it because there really is something about them asking for your phone number? And if it's the latter, why is that funny? (I assumed maybe it's funny because everyone knows why they ask for you phone number, except me?)

Yeah, that was a real thing. My Dad asked them about it once, and IIRC they said getting addresses was a way to research customer traffic (how far they were travelling to stores and finding places to put new ones) and to send out mailers, while collecting phone #'s was so they could inform you of sales and stuff (this was pre-internet, obvs).

requesting a phone number for a check payment is a standard thing. people have their number and address printed on checks.

what exactly is going on here

https://twitter.com/RadioShack

obnoxious youtube personality purchases corpse of radioshack, hires someone to tweet like an aggressive zoomer troll, subverting expectations of how an established brand is supposed to be anthropomorphized on twitter even though the brand itself has only enough value left to represent an "established brand" with a blue checkmark and there is literally nothing left for it to lose, so why not suck away its last bit of relevance for a small pile of post-crash crypto profit