
The Lost Tribes of RadioShack - suraj
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_radioshack/all/1
======
ck2
Forget Radio Shack, anyone remember Heathkit?

[http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/30/business/plug-is-pulled-
on...](http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/30/business/plug-is-pulled-on-heathkits-
ending-a-do-it-yourself-era.html)

<http://img807.imageshack.us/img807/5103/h100cat851.jpg>

I remember puzzling over everything in the store as a kid, it was fascinating
and I couldn't afford anything but the free catalogs. I knew those super-
dooper expensive computers were the future. (Eventually built a Heathkit AM
radio).

~~~
Kadin
Kit electronics aren't dead, they're just ... resting.

Elecraft (<http://www.elecraft.com/>) is the spiritual successor of Heathkit,
at least in terms of some of the Ham radio kits. They're not cheap and contain
a lot of ASICs, so you're not really putting them together from bare
components, but it's still a fair bit of work with the 'ol soldering iron.

Qkits also has some neat stuff, including a software-defined oscilloscope
(<http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/PCSGU250>).

There are sometimes similar things for other test equipment. The key
indicators of whether you can find something in kit form are: 1) is it
expensive to buy assembled? 2) is it expensive less because of the underlying
technology than because of manufacturer markup? 3) is it something that a lot
of hobbyists would want to own?

Hence a lot of oscilloscope and function-generator and counter kits, some
radio kits, but not so many digital camera kits. I have seen an increasing
number of MP3 player kits though, which is interesting; it suggests that the
underlying parts aren't the main cost drivers anymore.

~~~
sliverstorm
I think the prevalence of MP3 player kits is tied to the fact that they are
simple, and nearly everyone can enjoy a MP3 player, so it seems like it has
become a little bit of the hobbyist hardware equivalent of "Hello World".

------
yagibear
Previous appearance on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1336052>

------
davidw
> But it also served as a portent that the hands-on way of life RadioShack
> embodied would become irrelevant.

Well; yes and no. I think a lot of 'tinkerers' now spend their time hacking. I
know I prefer programming to fiddling around with little bits and pieces that
have to be bought and assembled. It's a much more "self-sufficient" world in
that you _don't_ need to pop out to Radio Shack to buy that little piece
you're missing.

~~~
shib71
Or rather, the little pieces you need are usually libraries or frameworks or
freely available software. The open source ecosystem and Google is a
developer's Radio Shack.

------
ekidd
At least my neck of the woods (New England, well-educated town), electronics
tinkering is alive and well, mostly in the form of robotics competitions.
There's a _lot_ of robotics clubs around here, starting with Mindstorms and
working up to a handful of high-school students who design circuit boards and
send their mechanical part designs out to 3D prototyping houses.

Notice, also, the popularity of Make magazine, the Arduino, and the open
source hardware movement. (Not to mention the self-replicating 3D printer
geeks.)

RadioShack, I think, is largely a victim of Digikey and other online component
retailers. It just doesn't make sense to devote much sales space to resistors
and bread boards in a modern mall, when you can get any imaginable part
shipped to you in a couple of days.

------
Edinburger
On a related note, if you love(d) RadioShack, be sure to check out Akihabara
('Electric Town') in Tokyo if you ever get a chance.
<http://www.kirainet.com/english/radio-center/>. I have never seen so many
electronic components on sale in one place. It was even possible to find
"vintage" ICs.

~~~
elblanco
Reminds me a bit of the Yongsan electronics market in Seoul. I've never been
in a building before with a hundred different stores selling nothing but PC
power supply fans.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongsan_Electronics_Market>

I've never been to Akihabara, but I've heard that the experience is similar.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
I applaud what this guy is doing and I hope he can get new business from it,
but for most RadioShacks it's a lost cause.

I was last in a RadioShack a week ago to find a spool of wire-wrap wire. The
salesperson didn't even know what I meant, so he just let me look around until
I found it. It's kinda sad because I'm old enough to remember being a kid
drooling over their huge component selection and going in every day to look at
the short wave receiver I wanted for Christmas and being able to have an
intelligent conversation about electronics.

But when I bought components yesterday, the $40 or so I spent at BG Micro
(<http://www.bgmicro.com> support these guys, they're nice :-) would have been
close to $200 at Radio Shack even back when they carried most of that stuff.

Don't mourn Radio Shack -- experimentation, kits, and hardware hacking is
bigger than ever. It's just moved online along with everything else.

------
pjscott
Digikey is the new Radio Shack. Nicer selection, but you can't just drive
there since they're online.

~~~
logic
Around here, that would be Frys; they carry most popular items from the NTE
catalog. I might hate their inventory control methods, but they're the only
brick and mortar location I can go to get components anymore, aside from
basics that Radio Shacks still carry.

There's also American Science and Surplus for motors and solenoids, but their
inventory of used stuff is always a crapshoot.

