What is the Value of Brick & Mortar???

A long, long time ago I interviewed for a video position at the Radio Shack headquarters in Fort Worth. During the interview, they gave me a tour of the facilities. Inside one of the big buildings was a fully-stocked Radio Shack store.

It was the "store" where they shot their commercials.

It was pretty cool and looked just like a real store out in the world. Instead of a ceiling and roof, though, it had a lighting grid.

Play that funky music white boy rep but since I cant give rep you will just have to be happy with this response.

Im so old I remember when radio shack had cool stereo equipment and CB radios back in the 70's.

I used to have a Realistic stereo system from Radio Shack. It was a great system.

My first PC was a Tandy. It was an OK computer for its day, but I can see where Tandy did a lot of things to screw themselves out of the computer business.

I remember being able to go into a Radio Shack and get all the shit for amature radio. I put it to good use as the only kid in jr. high with a pirate radio statio.

Now it's all cell phones, the same computer stuff I can get anywhere and the clerks look at you funny if you ask about CB radios or transitors for DIY projects.

Shows you how much our society has changed.

Radio Shack used to be staffed by guys who built HAM radios and had electronics knowledge and experience. Sadly, nowhere near as many people do that stuff nowadays.

Now kids want stuff to work straight out of the box.

I want stuff to work right out of the box and my college major was Electronic Engineering.

I remember before PCs, the old TRS-80s. Somewhere I still have a promotional Superman comic where a couple kids with a TRS-80 help save the world. We used to go in and write the stupid little programs in BASIC:
"What is your name?"
"Hi ______."
"Hi ______."
"Hi ______."
"Hi ______."
...

Crap. Off the top of my head, I can't remember the code for that. I bet it would come back if I needed it, though.

It started out with

10 INPUT "What is your name?" NM$
20 PRINT "Hello," NM$
30 PRINT ", how are you today?"


Something like that, as I recall.