Here's a bit of Radio Shack history - during its heyday, CB Radios made up a substantial percentage of Radio Shack's sales, but finally the bottom fell out. Don French was the "parts manager" who among other things managed the "Project Board" things, each Project Board sold by Radio Shack was a PC board to make a specific product, and coincidentally all the parts to stuff it and make a functioning product were available at Radio Shack. A digital alarm clock was the most popular.
Don pushed for the company to make a microcomputer. No one else in management wanted to do it because didn't believe it would sell, but finally they agreed to make 1,000. It was later changed to 3,500, one per store, with the idea that when they didn't sell, they could be used for store inventory with each store sending in a cassette tape of its inventory once a week.
So the TRS-80 was announced, and it was of course more successful than anyone imagined.
I heard this story (with lots more detail) as told last Sunday by Don French, speaking at the Vintage Computer Festival SouthEast 5.0:
Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 5.0 – Vintage Computer Federation
I had donated an original TRS-80 (actually a slightly later model with a keyboard that includes a numeric pad) to be auctioned, but the auction never happened. Near the end of the show one of the locals got Don to autograph the thing (photo by me, Flash is the local person holding the TRS-80):
Don pushed for the company to make a microcomputer. No one else in management wanted to do it because didn't believe it would sell, but finally they agreed to make 1,000. It was later changed to 3,500, one per store, with the idea that when they didn't sell, they could be used for store inventory with each store sending in a cassette tape of its inventory once a week.
So the TRS-80 was announced, and it was of course more successful than anyone imagined.
I heard this story (with lots more detail) as told last Sunday by Don French, speaking at the Vintage Computer Festival SouthEast 5.0:
Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 5.0 – Vintage Computer Federation
I had donated an original TRS-80 (actually a slightly later model with a keyboard that includes a numeric pad) to be auctioned, but the auction never happened. Near the end of the show one of the locals got Don to autograph the thing (photo by me, Flash is the local person holding the TRS-80):
My local radio shack had a banner "store closing" underneath it's sign today. I bought $117 worth of supplies, two huge bagfulls. Pics coming later...
Went to Rutland to get a windshield replaced this morning, saw a Store Closing sign. Apparently Sprint backed out of the deal they had, there will be only twenty stores left by mid-June. Lawsuit time, according to the last guy there, then they'll probably sell the trademarks and be done.
Anyway I left with $55 of cables(87c!),a power supply for a laptop, a ground loop isolator, and some little parts drawer bits. He gave me my choice of a pile of old catalogs, I picked the one with the Jetsons on the cover. Actually sad! (not fake news)
Anyway I left with $55 of cables(87c!),a power supply for a laptop, a ground loop isolator, and some little parts drawer bits. He gave me my choice of a pile of old catalogs, I picked the one with the Jetsons on the cover. Actually sad! (not fake news)
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