Radio shack vs Amazon

[sgtsandman]

I wish Radio Shack was still around here. They used to be my default go to for anything electronic.

 

[Li'l Work Truck]

I wish Radio Shack was still around here. They used to be my default go to for anything electronic.

I remember when you could buy diodes and chips from them, as well as switches and all kinds of small fittings. Before it was all over, the place felt like an Apple store. They really lost their customer base that way.

 

[Bird76Mojo]

 

[oldgeek]

The Radio Shack catalog was like looking at candy.

 

[oldgeek]

Radio Shack is still in business??

I can't complain about Amazon. When I was in PA bringing TRS back to life to take to the 20th anniversary, nobody anywhere near there had Cooper STT PROs. The best deal I could find anywhere was from Amazon, and I got 6-months same as cash on top of it. I've gotten my off-road lights and winches from there too. I can't just go to my O'Reilly Auto Parts and pick up a Smittybilt winch.

A lot of major company's have stores on Amazon.

Last summer I bought a portable fan from Amazon to keep my dog cool in the back seat, and the damn thing won't take a USB charge. I need to see if I can bypass the USB charger and just plug it in with a chord. Other than that, I've had good luck.

When I lived in DFW I could order something in the morning and have it by evening, or the next day.

I recently needed a new fan motor for my freezer. Nobody stocked one. The appliance repair places could order one. Amazon could deliver one the next day.

Now, I'm not one of those people that have my groceries delivered and I don't mind shopping, but there are somethings that I need that I'm thankful for Amazon for.

You mention TRS and the context is Radio Shack.

You need to put a Z80 processor in one of your trucks... Somehow... Then you would have a TRS-80...

 

[Jim Oaks]

You mention TRS and the context is Radio Shack.

You need to put a Z80 processor in one of your trucks... Somehow... Then you would have a TRS-80...

I graduated high school in 1986. When I was in Junior High (Middle School) we had a Tandy TRS-80 computer and an Apple computer in our school library. I used to love programming basic language into the Tandy. 1980 was about that time that the home computer craze took off. My parents bought me a Texas Instruments TI-99 but later replaced it with a Commodore 64 because my dad found out TI was going to stop making it. My first C-64 had a cassette recorder that allowed you to save your work on a cassette tape. Yes, just like the ones you stuck in a stereo. Then I upgraded to a floppy disc drive that's the size of the computer tower you use today. The floppy disk was the size of today's CD's but square.... and floppy. I had a phone modem so I could call other computers, and my friend and I built a 'website' back in 1985.

I miss those early days of home computers. There was something exciting about them that's long gone.

 

[oldgeek]

Computer Science isn't a thing in schools anymore, so I have heard. Kids aren't taught that their smartphone is a handheld computer with an OS and file system.

 

[Jim Oaks]

I failed computer science. I don't know shit about computers.




I took a computer science class in High School my senior year which was the first year they offered it. I'm pretty sure my teacher was still taking classes to learn basic language. You had to write the code, give it to the teacher to check, and then she let you go up to a computer and enter it. Mind you at this time my buddy and I had already created our super high-tech state of the art website that you could call and leave and check messages on. LOL. I never entered what I told her I was going to enter, I got kicked out a lot, and my computer would make weird noises that she would have to shut off to get it to quit. My poor mother. That was the one class she was certain I was going to get an 'A' in. That was the one and only computer programming class I ever took.


I could never write the software that this website uses from scratch, but I can look at it and figure out how to edit it to get it to do what I need it to do. 4x4Junkie just recently suggested that we add the most recent forum posts to the side bar of the tech pages and featured vehicles, so I got the RSS feed (RSS stands for Ranger Stuff in Sidebar) cleaned it up with some CSS (pretty sure that stands for Cool Site Stuff) and pasted it into the sidebar to tempt people to join our intelligent convosations.

My Son-In-Law is a computer programmer. He's a 'Lead Programmer Analyst' now, whatever that is, but I was over there one evening several years ago when he was on call and someone actually called because they were having a computer issue and his response was 'Did you try turning it off and turning it back on?' 'It's working now?' 'Ok.'.