Tour of 2 Radio Shacks (1987)

This was footage as an employee for before footage as these Radio Shacks were about to go into a renovation.

This was in Garden Grove, California.

[KarlWitsman]

Worked in a Shack as an assistant manager, then years later as a part-time salesperson. This video almost brought a tear to my eye. I often miss Radio Shack as a customer too.

[KenMrKLC]

I was such a nerd kid I would take the sears and radio shack catalog and circle everything I wanted for xmas in them. I circled half the radio shack catalog... I had a COCO TRS-80 with drives etc learned a ton of electronics resister capacitors transistors leds etc with their project board kits> Bought many speakers, stereo components soooo much stuff

[whoslisteningu]

That second one was the radio shack I loved from my memories. I just needed an adapter a few weeks ago and got sad all over again that Radio Shack is gone.

[zorinlynx]

When I was ten, right around this time, and my mom would take me along to the mall, Radio Shack was my favorite stop. Thank you so much for this awesome flood of nostalgia. :)

[Matucks]

@08:28 when Madonna hit the air waves I felt a surge of emotions, took me right back to when I was 7 browsing stores in America

[Anon-ld]

wow what a gem! the music in the 2nd store, the glowing screens in a darker atmosphere. radioshack was my fav store in the 80s as a kid, and early 90s. electronic lab kits, free batteries, anything you needed to build an early 80s, early electronics era device or invention.

[poppynokc]

Geeze, brings back so many great memories. I've always loved electronics and RS was my favorite place to go as a kid and young adult. Thank you so very much for this. And can't leave here without mentioning Janet Jackson playing on the stereo. ❤

[maxvideodrome]

I adored the parts sections. I miss the 80's 90's Radio Shack.

[lockedin]

I do not miss inventories, remodels, plan-o-gram changes or that blasted door beep. I was a Shacker for 29+ years.

[saucierdavid]

At the age of 13, I would ride my bicycle 13 miles round trip just to buy a few circuit boards, LEDs, resistors and ICs to build different circuits from the Mims books. Times have changed. Thanks for sharing the video!

[bluedotdinosaur]

Radio Shack from this era always makes me think of the "lost age" of home computing, electronics, and everyday technology. Probably a 20 year period from 1974 to 1994. Beginning with the Altair, the first successful personal computer kit. Ending with the bankruptcy of Commodore in 94.

This was a different time from today. The technologies that are invisibly packaged up and used by people without any inkling of what they are, or how they work, where in the earlier era bigger, chunkier, but more accessible and visible. The 80s was certainly an explosion of consumer electronics. But the components were still things that many everyday people had some familiarity with. More people performed their own maintenance and repair of personal machines that involved electronics. It was more common to see a soldering iron in homes than today.

Radio Shack of that era reflected it obviously. The stores were well-stocked with components, not just pre-built devices and computers.

[tednothnagle]

I started working at RadioShack about 4 years after these videos were made. The first store is a "tech" store format, and the one in the video is so well maintained -- a 10 out of 10. The second one is a "brown" store, and it looks cluttered and out of date. By 1991 when I started, there were only a few "brown" stores left. I noticed the "tech" store didn't have carpeting. Shortly after I arrived all the stores got carpet squares. It was a bitch to mop them every night prior to that. I recognize a lot of fixtures. The standup ashtray was not on the sales floor anymore in 1991, but most managers had them next to their desks, filled with butts, as smoking in the backroom was commonplace until 1995 or so, when a mall in Connecticut caught fire due to smoking in RadioShack. I won't bore you with my memories, but one thing was the 4 foot wall of small packaged speakers. The boxes in the video must be empty, because the magnets would push each other apart, and they were impossible to keep straight. :)

[robwebnoid]

Yes, these were the days long gone. I am a Radio Shack fan since 1980, when I was about 13, so by 1987 I was 20. Every time our family went to the huge malls in the early 1980's, I would take that long walk to the Shack as my first priority. I normally would only buy electronic tools & electronic parts. I still have a lot of those parts & tools today, sometimes including the packaging. Still have my soldering tools from them & also a multimeter bought in the early 1990s, which I still use today. I was there at my local Shack in town for their final big national liquidation in Spring 2017, when everything was up to 90% off & I bought all these clearance items which I would have never bought at regular price. Today, the Shack is still in business but not the way they used to be, although it is hard to say how much longer they will survive. But at least they already made their century mark as a business, 1921 - 2021, which many other businesses usually never get to.
04/18/24

[Trance]

OH my GAWD. I'm so glad you recorded this! This is like pure retro Radio Shack gold! I wish I was alive during this era. I wasn't born until EXACTLY year and half later, TO THE DAY!

[dellsolutionscenter]

Just one of the finer things of yesteryear. I miss whole time frame in my life. In 87 I was a senior at Valley Stream Central High School. Our RadioShack was very similar to the first one but it was a little bigger and had music. I think we all miss the simpler times.

[ForestWhitakerTulpa]

This is my new favorite channel, just comfy footage back in time.

[Raptoraus]

I worked at Tandy Australia store from 1983 to 1987, was great times as a teenager. The store looked similar to this.

[azmrblack]

Wow. I was only 4 when this was made, but alot of Radioshacks stayed this way up until the late 90's, I see in the 2nd video they still had protoboard so you could do your own "Arduino" type stuff! They still carried components and bulk cable so you always knew if you needed a common component you could just jet right up to your corner RS and get it. A gem for sure as a window into the past. Thanks for uploading!

[billdwhite]

I love this! The guy at 13:40 sitting at the computer with the collar on his Izod turned up is so perfect for that decade!! This is also really nostalgic for me since my father (now passed) owned 2 franchise stores in Texas and I grew up there throughout the 80's! Thanks so much for posting this.

[thewanderer]

Wow! How awesome is this video. Timeless, and in a capsule. Not a cellphone anywhere. And the push button phones on the display. I miss digging through the little bins looking for all that odd stuff you would never find now.