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Comment by gregd | Hacker News Reader

I graduated from high school in the 80s. My first computer was a TRS-80 WITH a cassette tape to save my programs to. How RS went from being ubiquitous to a laughing stock is beyond me, but I remember seeing the downfall during the 90s when they started offering really cheap toys (like remote controlled cars).

They almost became embarrassing.

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While I share your sentiment, in actuality they were likely already a laughing stock in 1985 when this Jobs interview ran, "Radio Shack is totally out of the picture. They have missed the boat. Radio Shack tried to squeeze the computer into their model of retailing, which in my opinion often meant selling second-rate products or low-end products in a surplus-store environment." http://longform.org/stories/playboy-interview-steve-jobs

I find there's a lot of romantic nostalgia. I accept that there are doubtless examples where Radio Shack stores were hubs for ham radio or electronics activity or whatever. And, certainly, the average skills of Radio Shack employees are a lot lower than they were at one time. But Radio Shack always sold huge quantities of crap (e.g. laughable stereo gear) to people who mostly didn't know any better along with generally overpriced cables etc. at a time when random components weren't necessarily all that easy to find elsewhere.

I remember Radio Shack being useful when I needed an adapter or a cable. But I can't say that I ever particularly loved the place.

Yours is the first comment mentioning the TRS-80. Currently it's halfway down the page.

I find this a bit surprising as the TRS-80 had a huge impact on the PC industry. It was the first PC that was easy to buy since Radio Shack stores were widespread.

Although derided as the "Trash-80," it was enormously popular for a time: "Still forecasting 3,000 sales a year, the company sold over 10,000 TRS-80s Model Is in its first one and a half months of sales…" [1]

According to the Wiki entry, it was released with two bundles, the bare unit at $399 and $599 with monitor and tape storage unit. Adjusted for inflation, that's $1,555 and $2,334.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80#History

My first computer was also a TRS-80 from Radio Shack. We'd go to Radio Shack to get new game cartridges, new cassette tape games, magazines with actual code in them (!), and even an upgrade from 8K to 16K RAM.

Those days are long gone. I understand why they got into selling other stuff, but now one can get all that other stuff elsewhere, often at lower cost…

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