Now I'm a believer

[marcspaz]

Man... I remember when I first bought the TRASH80. So many people talk crap about it, but man did I have fun with that thing. I learned how to write shells and programs using that thing.  Backup and restore to a cassette tape was too funny, too.

 

Radio Shack was a great store for two-way radios all the way up to when computers, cell phones and satellite TV became mainstream. I literally bought components to do repairs if I had a customer waiting on a job and I ran out of resistors, capacitors and standard 3-leg transistors... occasionally ordering bulk ICs, and PAs for radios I was commonly repairing or upgrading. The good old days of peaking, opening up modulation, adding channels. Good times.

[LeoG]

I used RS as a place to by electronic components for the most part.  Hung out there for a few years as the manager like the company.  We were practically employees at one point.  Don't actually remember where I got my 1st base station antenna and coax.

[OffRoaderX]

20 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

I remember when I first bought the TRASH80

Dancing Demon changed the computer world forever...

[LeoG]

I had the TRS 80 along with the huge 40 MB hard drive.  I had to format it by hand by swapping out two 5 1/4" floppies.  Took forever and I didn't think it would ever end.

Also played with a computer in school that we programmed with punch cards.  And after that played with the 8080 computer chip.

[tcp2525]

1 hour ago, SteveShannon said:

You’re just a young guy!

Before Tandy Radio Shack there was Allied Radio Shack and before Allied Radio Shack there was Allied Radio and Radio Shack, two separate companies. Allied Radio was a well respected competitor of Lafayette. 
Not everything sold by Radio Shack has been poor quality. They even sold some reasonable quality coax but they also sold some crappy coax as well. 
Personally I prefer to stay away from inexpensive coax. I would rather use quad shielded RG6 for UHF, even at 75 ohms, than some of the lossy 50 ohm cable.  

Thanks for the compliment! And all this time I thought I was old and decrapitated.

I agree, I think Tandy ruined Radio Shack. It was a downward spiral for decades. I always liked the catalogs back then. There's a site that has PDFs of every year they printed. From what I remember during my CB days back in the 70s, Radio Shack's RG8 was only offered with foam core and the braided shield was horrible. For CB we didn't care. I don't think any of us today would buy their cable since we have so many great options.

[WRUE951]

47 minutes ago, LeoG said:

I had the TRS 80 along with the huge 40 MB hard drive.  I had to format it by hand by swapping out two 5 1/4" floppies.  Took forever and I didn't think it would ever end.

Also played with a computer in school that we programmed with punch cards.  And after that played with the 8080 computer chip.

i started out with a Commodore 64, then a TRS 80, then an Apple and been with Apple since 1986. Although i do have a Windows 11 machine but seldom go to it. 

[tcp2525]

52 minutes ago, LeoG said:

I used RS as a place to by electronic components for the most part.  Hung out there for a few years as the manager like the company.  We were practically employees at one point.  Don't actually remember where I got my 1st base station antenna and coax.

It was definitely a great place to hang out and get to play with all the goodies. Those were the good old days.

[WRUE951]

20 hours ago, tcp2525 said:

As stated above, RG400 MIL spec Teflon dielectric with silver plated copper conductors. Perfect for mobile installation and works great with the world famous and highly cherished NMO mount. In other words, pure perfection. 

And here ya go, an already made cable that's ready for installation and it even has the dreaded PL-259.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375935266177

Back in the Radio Shack Days, i don't think there was to many people concerned with Coax quality..  Most of us use it for 10-11 meter stuff and it worked great..   RG58 was the norm for auto installs.   The good ole' days

[tcp2525]

Just now, WRUE951 said:

Back in the Radio Shack Days, i don't think there was to many people concerned with Coax quality..  Most of us use it for 10-11 meter stuff and it worked great..   RG58 was the norm for auto installs.   The good ole' days

Yep, who cared about coax quality for CB just as long as the SWR was good.

[WRUE951]

2 minutes ago, tcp2525 said:

Yep, who cared about coax quality for CB just as long as the SWR was good.

SWR was all we cared about and bragged about  

[tcp2525]

4 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

SWR was all we cared about and bragged about  

And if you had a Siltronix you really had bragging rights.

[WSHH887]

Last trip to RS I needed some buss fuses. The girl didn't even know what a fuse was. She only sold phones. The electronic parts area was a mere shadow of what it once was and in disarray. 

[WRYZ926]

Many HF antennas were made with twin lead wire from Radio Shack. And I still have a great set of Radio Shack Realistic speakers that still sound great after 40+ years.

I have to agree with @SteveShannon, I would rather use a good quality 75 ohm coax over some cheap craptastic 50 ohm coax.

I don't even like using the cheap Amazon or eBay coax for short jumpers even though loss is not a factor with such short lengths. The biggest issue I have is the lack of shielding in the cheap stuff.

[MarkInTampa]

I worked at Radio Shack when I was in high school back in the TRS-80 Model 1/3 and CoCo days. I wrote a spreadsheet with VisiCalc (long before Excel or even Lotus) to track golf handicaps for a local golf course and we must have sold at least 50 Model III's to almost every golf course in So Cal just for that spreadsheet.

About the coolest thing I can remember was the radio tech that tuned my 148GTL-DX when they first came out (early-mid 80's). He had a Commodore Vic 20 with a Kantronics interface connected to a HF rig decoding RTTY and CW on the fly. I just thought that was so cool - to hear/see radio Cuba (and it's propaganda) RTTY news on a CRT/TV without a teletype in real time made a impression in my early years that last until today.

 

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, MarkInTampa said:

I worked at Radio Shack when I was in high school back in the TRS-80 Model 1/3 and CoCo days. I wrote a spreadsheet with VisiCalc (long before Excel or even Lotus) to track golf handicaps for a local golf course and we must have sold at least 50 Model III's to almost every golf course in So Cal just for that spreadsheet.

About the coolest thing I can remember was the radio tech that tuned my 148GTL-DX when they first came out (early-mid 80's). He had a Commodore Vic 20 with a Kantronics interface connected to a HF rig decoding RTTY and CW on the fly. I just thought that was so cool - to hear/see radio Cuba (and it's propaganda) RTTY news on a CRT/TV without a teletype in real time made a impression in my early years that last until today.

 

I was gong to buy the Vic 20 but decided to use the credit card for the 64.  I actually had more fun with the Commodore than the TRS80 or even the Apple..