They were always terrible, but I have fond pre-teen memories of saving up my allowance to buy components off the pegboard in the back and then failing to make anything that worked with them.

I also have fond memories of being young, but when I really stop and think about it, the key ingredient was *being young*.

The only things worthwhile to get at RadioShack were electronics project components, breadboards, soldering equipment, circuit board etching stuff and so on. Once they threw that stuff under the bus in order to sell cell phones and $9 toys, the place went downhill fast.

I have fond memories of the manager letting me play with the computers for hours. Our Radio Shack was in the mall and I'd drop in and start writing programs on the TRS-80 display models while my parents were shopping.

The manager not only didn't kick me out (like the manager of the bookstore always did if I looked at a book for more than five minutes), he'd come over and teach me some things when he wasn't busy.

Those were the days