If you were there for the dawn of the era of personal computers, there’s some sad news today. Put down that AARP application, pop a Citracal, and join me in this time of mourning: RadioShack is bankrupt.
RadioShack, after years of puzzling bottom-seeking stock investors on how it managed to stay in business, filed for bankruptcy on Thursday evening…
The bankruptcy filing ends a surprisingly long run for RadioShack. While some electronics competitors such as Circuit City and Nobody Beats The Wiz died years ago, the Ft. Worth, Tx.-based company withstood the internet age, the rise of Apple and consumers’ transition to wireless devices mostly by selling cords, esoteric technological parts, battery packs and adapters.
Long, long ago, just after the Earth cooled, RadioShack also sold something called the TRS-80. For many people at the time (some of whom would go on to become world-famous bloggers), it was their first glimpse of the future:
That was the Trash-80 my family had, the Model 3. Those horizontal slots next to the space-age built-in B&W monitor were for something called “floppy disks,” which wouldn’t even hold enough data to control the brightness on your iPhone. And a lot of the computer games we youngsters craved were actually sold on “cassette tapes,” which was the style at the time.
Then there was this beloved childhood toy:
Those little dots all over it were metal springs. You’d connect the components with copper wires to assemble various electronic devices. It was about as powerful as a modern garage door opener, but that’s all we needed. It was a simpler time.
But of course, that was long, long ago. If you’ve been inside a RadioShack since the first Clinton presidency, my hat is off to you. Thanks for helping to keep them around this long.