I miss having a local place where I can buy a discrete transistor or capacitor.

But Radio Shack was also a pioneer in intrusive information gathering. They would always ask for your name and address at check-out, often practically insisting they couldn't complete the sale without it. I usually gave them "1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC" as my address. I hope Clinton and GWB liked those catalogs!

I think their cash registers ran SCO Xenix. I ran the free version on my desktop at work for a few months in the late 90s (I think that I still have the installation media).

They had the same virtual console behavior as we see in Linux.

I had a friend who worked in one of the stores, and I scared the daylights out of him by hitting Ctrl-Alt-F4 on his cash register to get a login. After switching back to F1, he learned the scary trick himself. I have no idea why all of the gettys were enabled in /etc/inittab.

Edit: I had no idea about Pier 1 (rest in peace), the 1959 proxy battle for the family takeover, Tandy's sale of Pier 1 in 1966, Tandy's purchase of a controlling interest in the failing Radio Shack for $300k, Tandy's abrasive management style, or his early demise at 60 from a heart attack.

Peir 1 folded just as we entered the COVID pandemic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_1_Imports

> insisting they couldn't complete the sale without it

I worked there in the 80s. Early 80s was paper. Late 80s was terminal. Typing an R in the first name field bypassed this obligation IIRC.

Reason RS was so insistent is the company originally started via mail order and wanted this revenue stream to not dwindle....although it obviously did by the 80s.

PS: There's a business who still has their Tandy Leather sign out front in my city.

Huh, they asked for phone number here in SoCal. I may have given it the first time but afterward always said no or no thanks. Don’t remember them insisting but if they did I’d probably have given Jenny’s number.

I recall getting asked for my mail address at a UK retail electronics store some time in the 2010 to 2015 time period. They wouldn't complete the transaction without it. I walked out and bought it from Amazon UK instead. I figured if I was giving my mail address away I might as well get the benefit of the cheaper sticker price.

I've not been very sympathetic to the demise of bricks & mortar retail since then.

Michael's still asks for your Zip Code at checkout

i learned how to write BASIC on a Tandy Color Computer 3 but that is not what I am most proud about. I was officially (statistically) the worst salesperson at Radio Shack in northern Ohio one summer in college. I looked like a dynamo of productivity, but in actuality I was mostly spending time talking to a Ham radio operator about diodes or a musician customer about King Crimson and Can. Take your name and address. Pffft, I would often make something up so nobody noticed. I sold a computer to a woman for her daughter going to college and felt dirty but there was no other way she was getting a computer. I hope she went on to become an astronaut, or principled House member

i just learned there are about 100 Tandy Leather stores out there if you want to pay tribute