Here Are 64 Years of RadioShack Catalogs to Browse Online for Free

August 28, 2024 8:53 AM

https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/ Reported by Gizmodo: For more than 70 years, RadioShack was an electronics hobbyist’s paradise. It went bankrupt multiple times in the past decade and now it’s been sold for parts. Its X account famously shills crypto with eye-catching NSFW posts. But the glory days of RadioShack live on thanks to the extensive archiving efforts of RadioShack Catalogs—a website that’s meticulously digitizing seven decades of the store’s catalogs. Previously.
posted by AlSweigart (47 comments total)

Oh man, the hours I spent poring over those catalogs as a teenager! So many fabulously cool things I never had the money to buy.

And it was so much fun going into the stores back in the day. Over time I probably bought every conceivable audio cable and adapter as well as parts and connectors to cobble together my own....

Good Times.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:05 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]

Might as well ask before I spend too long searching the caralogs (awesome post by the way).

Does anyone remember these books that were sold at RS with electronics projects for beginners? They explained the basics of electronics really well, had hand drawn illustrations, and had lots of projects going from simple resistor and led to using ICs?

I got one from a second hand bookstore at a beach resort in Mexico when I was a teen and it blew my mind.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:11 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]

#ptsd has the funniest triggers. I was #humantrafficked on a #radioshack phone with a #code that I was given by a guy I met at Wet and Wild in Arlington Texas when I was 14. That phone cost me my innocence. I'm now a tech founder with a huge voice in that space. Amazing.
posted by lextex at 9:11 AM on August 28 [2 favorites]

Forrest Mims is the hand drawn electronics
posted by clew at 9:13 AM on August 28 [10 favorites]

Does anyone remember these books that were sold at RS with electronics projects for beginners?

Those were the Forrest Mims books; I think one Christmas I used all the money I got and bought out every one my RS had. Looks like there's a bunch of scans here.

I pulled up the 1987 one: so much nostalgia, all the bits and bobs and oh I had that car stereo amp and 10-band EQ and I bought those RCA connectors by the bucketload -- the 160-in-one electronics kit!...so much nostalgia.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:15 AM on August 28 [9 favorites]

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

The 1994 catalog is like a time machine, I had so many Radio Shack doodads. The Minimus speakers were my go-to travel speakers and also formed my bedroom stereo in concert with my SA-155 mini amplifier that also hooked up to my turntable and Radio Shack CD player and cassette player. It was all so cheap compared to everything else. Radio Shack was an amazing, amazing place and I miss it. I miss the thrill of unwrapping a new set of casssette tapes. I miss going in and buying transistors. I miss the feeling of walking into a store filled with The Future.

I do not miss refusing to give them my telephone number.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:16 AM on August 28 [7 favorites]

Five pages of poteniometers, five pages of toggle switches, and, under Semiconductor Values, for 12 cents, a 500 MA Epoxy Rectifier, whatever that is. Great stuff!
posted by kozad at 9:19 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]

I didn't remember electronics in 1985 being that expensive but I tell you what

Like a lot of those prices would not be out of line in today money. but it wasn't today money! it was then money!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:20 AM on August 28 [5 favorites]

The interface definitely brings back the memory of flipping through trying desperately to find the computers and games. "Why are there all these stupid stereos in the front?" On the other hand, I found the 160-in-One Electronic Project Kit that was one of my favorite Christmas presents either...and I'm kind of shocked that it was only 29.95.
posted by mittens at 9:23 AM on August 28 [2 favorites]

They should have rebranded at some point to Computer Shack, to keep mentionable status.
posted by Brian B. at 9:25 AM on August 28

As a child of the 70s and 80s, hoo boy did Radio Shack have the best toys for nerdy boys. I'd save up to get at least one cool thing a year.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:27 AM on August 28 [1 favorite]

fuck...I DID knida want that.
posted by es_de_bah at 9:36 AM on August 28

One free battery! Just show up once a month. (As a kid, I did this regularly, but then again, the Radio Shack wasn't a far off walk)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:38 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]

Dad helping me build a crystal radio thing.
posted by Czjewel at 9:56 AM on August 28 [3 favorites]

Previous appearances of radioshackcatalogs.com:

boom-Shack-a-lacka-lacka boom (and bust)
Don't forget your battery card.

----
I still think fondly of Jon Bois' A eulogy for RadioShack, the panicked and half-dead retail empire
posted by zamboni at 10:03 AM on August 28 [8 favorites]

1990 pg 20 the Realistic Mach Two - I had these speakers for 25 years - happy to see the 94db sensitivity.

Nice little time machine, thanks for the link.
posted by djseafood at 10:17 AM on August 28

Aw, man. When I was in elementary school my dad, an enthusiastic ham radio dude since he was a kid, helped me build a crystal radio set for science fair. I remember going to RS and looking through all the little drawers with him to find the parts we needed. Highfive, Czjewel, it was a fun project, wasn't it?
posted by PussKillian at 10:28 AM on August 28

The idea that anyone was paying $1500 (in today's dollars) for a copy of the Bible on CD-ROM in 1989 is mind-boggling.

(See: 1989 RadioShack Educational Products Catalog (RSC-20E), page 4)
posted by rh at 10:34 AM on August 28

Homer: We’ll search out every place a sick, twisted, solitary misfit might run to!
Lisa: I’ll start with Radio Shack!
posted by credulous at 10:43 AM on August 28 [4 favorites]

In the early 80s, I worked for a physicist while in High School. He had several feet of wall in his office/lab devoted to parts from Radio Shack.
posted by Spike Glee at 12:26 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]

The idea that anyone was paying $1500 (in today's dollars) for a copy of the Bible on CD-ROM in 1989 is mind-boggling.

On the plus side, a decade later they moved towards a shareware model: call our number and pay us $60 unlock the rest of the CD!
posted by pwnguin at 12:27 PM on August 28

I have come to my electronics hobby late in life, I was not at all interested back in the day. And it’s a renaissance these days. I am massively lucky to have a Micro Center with an entire STEM/maker section right on my commute home. Never mind the profusion of online shopping options.

Radio shack style electronics hobbyism died when PCBs started to be populated with surface mount instead of more accessible DIP or socketed packages. But it has been born anew with the current crop of super-cheap microcontrollers made in breadboard friendly form factors. Never mind how easy it is to get your own fucking PCB printed now! I can design a board in KiCad and get five of them delivered within about 2 weeks, for like $120 including shipping. We live in the future!
posted by notoriety public at 12:31 PM on August 28 [3 favorites]

before we get too misty-eyed about the Forrest Mims books, we have to remember that he's a dedicated climate change denier because it doesn't fit in with his fundamentalist beliefs
posted by scruss at 12:59 PM on August 28 [5 favorites]

Hehe. The Radio Shack Color Computer was peak Shack for me, but I remember (aside from countless runs for components and batteries) one of the Radio-Shackiest things I bought was:

An adapter that plugged into the 8-track player in my hand-me-down Volarie station wagon such that I could play cassette tapes from my Sony Walkman in the car. Talk about living in the future.
posted by chromecow at 1:04 PM on August 28 [3 favorites]

My memory of rat shack from the 1980s was that its house-brand stuff was the electronic equivalent of "toughskins" jeans from sears. Maybe sturdy (though oft not), sometimes cheap, but deeply uncool.
posted by maxwelton at 1:29 PM on August 28 [3 favorites]

Hence the TRS-80 computer often getting derisively referred to as the "Trash-80".
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:19 PM on August 28

> I still think fondly of Jon Bois' A eulogy for RadioShack, the panicked and half-dead retail empire

This is a hell of a read.
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:31 PM on August 28 [3 favorites]

Kramer: "Why does Radio Shack ask for your zip code when you buy batteries?"
posted by valkane at 5:04 PM on August 28

Frankly for my entire lifetime, Radioshack's core value to society was best served by at most a single store in every metro region, but they instead they had like 5,200 in 2014.

On the plus side, there's a Microcenter opening up near me this year, first in California!
posted by pwnguin at 5:24 PM on August 28

This is a hell of a read

After reading that you realize this is a company which needed to die in a fire, however fondly many of us might remember visiting its locations.
posted by maxwelton at 5:24 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]

Because the infrastructure wasn't built out to lojack peoples purchases via loyalty cards and non cash payment methods at a time when the overwhelming majority of purchases were with cash.
posted by Mitheral at 5:27 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]

When RS asked for my zip code, rather than getting huffy I just invariably told them "10101". I sometimes wonder if they built an extra store or two in Manhattan on the basis of my purchases.

By the same token if a store asks me for my phone number, unless they have a legit need for it I always rattle off "555-1212". Fight the power! ✊
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:53 PM on August 28 [1 favorite]

1060 W. Addison, Chicago IL 60613. Accept no substitutes.

I pity their mail room.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:14 PM on August 28 [6 favorites]

I lusted after the pocket computer, but ended up getting a Model 102 just about the time they started closing out their inventory. What a great machine that was!
posted by lhauser at 6:15 PM on August 28 [3 favorites]

Oh wow, what a rush of nostalgia. Count me as another Gen-Xer who pored over these catalogs as a 1980s teen.

(I also used to camp out at the Radio Shack nearest my house, exploring TRS-80s, teaching myself BASIC, until they booted me)
posted by doctornemo at 6:24 PM on August 28

I think it is super cool that so many of you are into the electronics space, see also all the crazy Pi raspberry spaces and maker spaces and such.

Had one of those 160-in-1 kits,which were cool as foretold, but I never really understood why they did what they did. Followed the instructions, and shit worked. Cool. But never understood the why of it.

I went software, not hardware, so RS was never my jam. Good to see there are other better companies doing this space than RS ever was.

Wish I were able to make make custom PCBs that made any sense for me.
posted by Windopaene at 8:21 PM on August 28 [2 favorites]

Radio Shack as we knew it didn't go under until 2015 which means there was a while there at the end they would have had a ridiculously disproportionate fan base in Beverly Hills starting in 2008.

I don't remember them asking for a zip postal code but rather a phone number. And I was always happy to oblige with 828-3000, the main non emergency number for the local mounties.
posted by Mitheral at 11:50 PM on August 28

Radio Shack catalogs were cool, but nothing will ever beat the Edmund Scientific Catalog for sheer nerdiness.
posted by mikelieman at 5:24 AM on August 29 [7 favorites]

Ahhh so many great memories of my grandpa, an enthusiastic resident of the radio shack on Navy ships for so many years, taking me there and occasionally buying a new Sierra game for me to play on his T1000. Good times.

@pwnguin I moved to LA a few years ago, and while I still haven’t taken the time to visit it yet, the Tustin MicroCenter is in California, yes? Maybe I misunderstood your “first” comment.
posted by mboszko at 7:56 AM on August 29

Maybe I misunderstood your “first” comment.

Somehow my eyes skipped right over that in the locations list. Oops. Not like I'd drive to LA for loss leader Raspberry Pis though.
posted by pwnguin at 9:49 AM on August 29

My nostalgia would be complete if one could conveniently store these in a basket next to the toilet in this format.
posted by RockyChrysler at 4:39 PM on August 29 [1 favorite]

I always had a love/hate relationship with RS. A lot of what they sold was just garbage. For me, a lot of the stuff they sold made them the place of last resort. Because even the parts they sold were crap by the 80s. But they served a real market back then.

I remember going to a Maplin store in Glasgow in the early 90s, picking up their catalog. I was almost in tears seeing what they had available. For good prices, too. Stuff that was practically unobtanium in the US, at least for hobbyists. I'd never known RS to come anywhere near their level at that time.

RS did sometimes have interesting novel goods and electronical dodads that could be had no place else. Once consumer electronics became good enough/cheap/ubiquitous enough, and home computers became practical tools rather than hobbyist time-wasters, the writing was on the wall. RS lost its niche and couldn't remain relevant. I shed a tear from nostalgia of being a curious, catalog-gawking kid more than from the loss of the stores.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:36 PM on August 29

Everything From This 1991 Radio Shack Ad You Can Now Do With Your Phone (from the ancient history of 2014):

So here's the list of what I've replaced with my iPhone.

• All weather personal stereo, $11.88. I now use my iPhone with an Otter Box.
• AM/FM clock radio, $13.88. iPhone.
• In-Ear Stereo Phones, $7.88. Came with iPhone.
• Microthin calculator, $4.88. Swipe up on iPhone.
• Tandy 1000 TL/3, $1599. I actually owned a Tandy 1000, and I used it for games and word processing. I now do most of both of those things on my phone.
• VHS Camcorder, $799. iPhone.
• Mobile Cellular Telephone, $199. Obvs.
• Mobile CB, $49.95. Ad says "You'll never drive 'alone' again!" iPhone.
• 20-Memory Speed-Dial phone, $29.95.
• Deluxe Portable CD Player, $159.95. 80 minutes of music, or 80 hours of music? iPhone.
• 10-Channel Desktop Scanner, $99.55. I still have a scanner, but I have a scanner app, too. iPhone.
• Easiest-to-Use Phone Answerer, $49.95. iPhone voicemail.
• Handheld Cassette Tape Recorder, $29.95. I use the Voice Memo app almost daily.
• BONUS REPLACEMENT: It's not an item for sale, but at the bottom of the ad, you're instructed to 'check your phone book for the Radio Shack Store nearest you.' Do you even know how to use a phone book?

You'd have spent $3,054.82 in 1991 to buy all the stuff in this ad that you can now do with your phone. That amount is roughly equivalent to about $5,100 in 2012 dollars.

posted by autopilot at 4:53 AM on August 31

If you really like the Engineering Notebook guides, Star Simpson (previously on metafilter [ancient metafilter warning]) has designed the Circuit Classics where each project has its own PCB with the original handdrawn schematic as a silkscreen layer and the components laid out roughly in the same way for you to solder into place.
posted by autopilot at 4:59 AM on August 31 [1 favorite]

I worked at Radio Shack in 1982. I bought a stereo system, parts of which were clearance items left over from 1981. The receiver, turntable, and cassette drive gave out decades ago but the floor speakers (25" tall, Deluxe 2-Way Passive Radiator System, $139.95 each) are still in use and sound great (with the surrounds having been replaced at least once).
posted by neuron at 9:29 AM on August 31 [1 favorite]

Mobile CB, $49.95. Ad says "You'll never drive 'alone' again!" iPhone.

Phones don't fill the same niche as CB radios. The CB ecosystem is a geographically limited adhoc chat room. Anyone could talk to anyone but, people running illegal rigs not withstanding, they could only talk to people localish to them.

Plus you can't play rabbit with cell phones.
posted by Mitheral at 12:58 PM on August 31

Man, the Edmund Scientific Catalog, that takes me back. They had a retail store in Chicago that was the closest thing that I've ever seen to one of those mythical stores that sells everything (and that only appears briefly, then disappears without a trace that it was ever there).
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:59 PM on September 1 [1 favorite]