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67-572: Despite praise from journalists for its technical innovations, the computer was not a commercial success outside of Japan. Radio Shack 's TRS-80 Model 100 (the American version of a Kyocera notebook), released in 1983, is thus credited as the first commercially successful notebook computer. The concept behind the HX-20 was first devised in July 1980 by Yukio Yokozawa, who worked for Suwa Seikosha , now

134-504: A 300  bit/s acoustic coupler was available, built-in microcassette drive, barcode reader connector. Uses a proprietary operating system , which consists of the EPSON BASIC interpreter and a monitor program, and weighs approximately 1.6 kg . The known colours of the machine are silver and cream, while some prototypes are dark grey. The HX-20 was supplied with a grey or brown carry case. An external acoustic coupler ,

201-667: A basic arrangement known as the von Neumann architecture , first proposed by the Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann . It is also noteworthy that the number of registers on GPUs is much higher than that on CPUs. (64 elements) (if FP present) 8 (if SSE/MMX present) (if AVX-512 available) (if FP present) + 2 × 32 Vector (dedicated vector co-processor located nearby its GPU) 16 in G5 and later S/390 models and z/Architecture (if FP present) (if FPP present) (up to 32) The number of registers available on

268-408: A built-in character map. Each bank is 40 bytes, with a bit 6 of the address determining the bank. Even though the address can be up to 127, nothing will happen when trying to access data outside the banks. If the pointer action in a command is set to decrement and the pointer is at 0, the pointer will wrap to 127. The Monitor program can be accessed via the main menu on startup by pressing 1, by typing

335-550: A lack of economies of scale led Radio Shack to exit the computer-manufacturing market in the 1990s after losing much of the desktop PC market to newer, price-competitive rivals like Dell . Tandy acquired the Computer City chain in 1991, and sold the stores to CompUSA in 1998. In 1994, RadioShack began selling IBM 's Aptiva line of home computers. This partnership would last until 1998, when RadioShack partnered with Compaq and created 'The Creative Learning Center' as

402-472: A larger memory into registers where they are used for arithmetic operations , bitwise operations , and other operations, and are manipulated or tested by machine instructions . Manipulated items are then often stored back to main memory, either by the same instruction or by a subsequent one. Modern processors use either static or dynamic RAM as main memory, with the latter usually accessed via one or more cache levels . Processor registers are normally at

469-441: A minority. In mid-December 2008, RadioShack opened three concept stores under the name "PointMobl" to sell wireless phones and service, netbooks , iPod and GPS navigation devices . The three Texas stores ( Dallas , Highland Village and Allen ) were furnished with white fixtures like those in the remodelled wireless departments of individual RadioShack stores, but there was no communicated relationship to RadioShack itself. Had

536-647: A period of long decline for the chain, which was slow to respond to key trends— such as e-commerce , the entry of competitors like Best Buy and Amazon.com , and the growth of the maker movement . By 2011, smartphone sales, rather than general electronics, accounted for half of the chain's revenue. The traditional RadioShack clientele of do-it-yourself tinkerers were increasingly sidelined. Electronic parts formerly stocked in stores were now mostly only available through on-line special order. Store employees concentrated efforts selling profitable mobile contracts, while other customers seeking assistance were neglected and left

603-666: A profit. Its six profitable stores were sold to Fry's Electronics in 1996; the others were closed. Other rebranding attempts included the launch or acquisition of chains including McDuff, Video Concepts and the Edge in Electronics; these were larger stores which carried TVs, appliances and other lines. Tandy closed the McDuff stores and abandoned Incredible Universe in 1996, but continued to add new RadioShack stores. By 1996, industrial parts suppliers were deploying e-commerce to sell

670-546: A ship's radio equipment. The Deutschmanns thought the name was appropriate for a store that would supply the needs of radio officers aboard ships, as well as hams (amateur radio operators). The idea for the name came from an employee, Bill Halligan, who went on to form the Hallicrafters company. The term was already in use — and is to this day — by hams when referring to the location of their stations. The company issued its first catalog in 1939 as it entered

737-401: A slow and gradual shift away from electronic parts and customer service and toward promotion of wireless sales and add-ons; the pressure to sell gradually increased, while the focus on training and product knowledge decreased. Morale was abysmal; longtime employees who were paid bonus and retirement in stock options saw the value of these instruments fade away. In 1998, RadioShack called itself

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804-462: A source of low-quality, inexpensive parts. In 1959, the store moved its headquarters to 730 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston (across the street from Boston University's Marsh Chapel ), with ambitious plans for further expansion. After expanding to nine stores plus an extensive mail-order business, the company fell on hard times in the early 1960s. Tandy Corporation, a leather goods corporation,

871-470: A store-within-a-store to promote desktop PCs. Similar promotions were tried with 'The Sprint Store at RadioShack' (mobile telephones), ' RCA Digital Entertainment Center' (home audio and video products), and 'PowerZone' (RadioShack's line of battery products, power supplies, and surge protectors). In the mid-1990s, the company attempted to move out of small components and into more mainstream consumer markets, focusing on marketing wireless phones. This placed

938-781: A supplier of parts for HobbyTown USA . On March 2, 2023, Retail Ecommerce Ventures announced that it was mulling a possible bankruptcy filing. In May 2023, Unicomer Group acquired control of the worldwide RadioShack franchise. Unicomer is based in El Salvador and is one of the largest franchisors of RadioShack, with stores in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. It had purchased its first RadioShack franchise (in El Salvador) in January 1998. The company

1005-581: A wide range of components online; it would be another decade before RadioShack would sell parts from its website, with a selection so limited that it was no rival to established industrial vendors with million-item specialised, centralised inventories. In 1994, the company introduced a service known as "The Repair Shop at Radio Shack", through which it provided inexpensive out-of-warranty repairs for more than 45 different brands of electronic equipment. The company already had over one million parts in its extensive parts warehouses and 128 service centers throughout

1072-506: Is a quickly accessible location available to a computer's processor . Registers usually consist of a small amount of fast storage , although some registers have specific hardware functions, and may be read-only or write-only. In computer architecture , registers are typically addressed by mechanisms other than main memory , but may in some cases be assigned a memory address e.g. DEC PDP-10 , ICT 1900 . Almost all computers, whether load/store architecture or not, load items of data from

1139-507: Is essentially an enhanced Motorola 6801 , 16 kB RAM expandable to 32 kB , two RS-232 ports at a maximum of 4800  bits/s for the first 8-pin DIN connector intended for modem or serial printer with the second port capable of 38 400   bits/s using a 5-pin DIN connector which was mainly for use with external floppy drive and video display an early concept of docking station ,

1206-481: The Memorex consumer recording trademarks to a Hong Kong firm, and divested most of its manufacturing divisions. House-brand products, which Radio Shack had long marked up heavily, were replaced with third-party brands already readily available from competitors. This reduced profit margins. In 1992, Tandy attempted to launch big-box electronics retailer Incredible Universe ; most of the seventeen stores never turned

1273-852: The Seiko Epson subsidiary of the Japanese Seiko Group , receiving a patent for the invention. It was announced in 1981 as the HC-20 in Japan, and was introduced by Epson in North America as the HX-20 at the 1981 COMDEX computer show in Las Vegas , where it drew significant attention for its portability. It had a mass-market release in July 1982, as the HC-20 in Japan and as the Epson HX-20 in North America. Epson advertised

1340-623: The Tandy Computer Whiz Kids (1982–1991), a comic-book duo of teen calculator enthusiasts who teamed up with the likes of Archie and Superman. Radio Shack's computer stores offered lessons to pre-teens as "Radio Shack Computer Camp" in the early 1980s. By September 1982, the company had more than 4,300 stores, and more than 2,000 independent franchises in towns not large enough for a company-owned store. The latter also sold third-party hardware and software for Tandy computers, but company-owned stores did not sell or even acknowledge

1407-766: The breakup of the Bell System encouraged subscribers to own their own telephones instead of renting them from local phone companies; Radio Shack offered twenty models of home phones. Much of the Radio Shack line was manufactured in the company's own factories. By 1990/1991, Tandy was the world's biggest manufacturer of personal computers; its OEM manufacturing capacity was building hardware for Digital Equipment Corporation, GRiD, Olivetti, AST Computer, Panasonic, and others. The company manufactured everything from store fixtures to computer software to wire and cable, TV antennas, audio and videotape. At one point, Radio Shack

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1474-414: The high-fidelity music market. In 1954, Radio Shack began selling its own private-label products under the brand name Realist, changing the brand name to Realistic after being sued by Stereo Realist . During the period the chain was based in Boston, it was commonly referred to disparagingly by its customers as "Nagasaki Hardware", as much of the merchandise was sourced from Japan, then perceived as

1541-618: The "Verizon Wireless Store" within a store. 2005 under the leadership of Jim Hamilton, marked a banner year for wireless. RadioShack sold more mobile phones than Walmart, Circuit City and Best Buy combined. RadioShack had not made products under the Realistic name since the early 1990s. Support for many of Radio Shack's traditional product lines, including amateur radio, had ended by 2006. A handful of small-town franchise dealers used their ability to carry non-RadioShack merchandise to bring in parts from outside sources, but these represented

1608-529: The CX-20, was available for the HX-20, as was an external floppy disk drive, the TF-20, and an external speech synthesis Augmentative Communication Device (ACD), 'RealVoice'. Another extension was the serially connected 40 × 24 character video. It used a special protocol, EPSP, which was also used by the external floppy disk drive. The battery life of the HX-20 was approximately 50 h running BASIC and less using

1675-568: The EPSON BASIC programming language. ROM #0 and #1 are known as the I/O ROMs, handling system reset and providing functions for using the LCD, keyboard, clock, printer, speaker, serial communication, etc. The I/O ROMs are equivalent to the BIOS in modern PCs. ROM #0 also contains the interrupt vector table at FFF0-FFFF. FFFE-FFFF determines what the program counter should be set to on power up or reset. In

1742-527: The Flavoradio the longest production run in radio history. It was originally released in five colors in the 1972 catalog: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, avocado, and plum. For 1973, vanilla and chocolate were dropped (and thus are rare today ) and replaced by lemon and orange. At some point two-tone models with white backs were offered but never appeared in catalogs; these are extremely rare today. The original design had five transistors (model 166). A sixth

1809-513: The Flavoradio was dropped from the catalog in 2001, it was the last AM-only radio on the market. The chain profited from the mass popularity of citizens band radio in the mid-1970s which, at its peak, represented nearly 30% of the chain's revenue. In 1977, two years after the MITS Altair 8800 , Radio Shack introduced the TRS-80 , one of the first mass-produced personal computers . This

1876-589: The HX-20 with a photograph and photo editing of the computer on two facing magazine pages with the headline "Actual size". With about the footprint of an A4 size page, the Epson HX-20 features a full-transit keyboard , rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries, a built-in 120 × 32-pixel LCD which allowed 4 lines of 20 characters, a calculator -size dot-matrix printer , the EPSON BASIC programming language, two Hitachi 6301 CPUs at 614 kHz which

1943-541: The HX-20. BYTE in September 1983 wrote that the HX-20, available in the United States for about a year, had been unsuccessful because of the lack of software or accessories. The review noted that Epson had included the formerly US$ 160 microcassette drive in the standard US$ 795 configuration, as well as bundling a simple word processor. BYTE praised the printer as "nothing short of amazing", but criticized

2010-550: The Monitor was entered on the third and fourth lines. These registers are A ( Accumulator A), B (Accumulator B), X (Index Register), C (Condition Code Register), S (Stack Pointer) and P ( Program Counter ). The monitor can be used for reading and writing memory, modifying CPU registers, running code at specific addresses in memory, saving/loading memory to/from a plugin option, etc. This is very useful for debugging programs written in machine code in difference to programs written in

2077-481: The US and Canada; it hoped to leverage these to build customer relationships and increase store traffic. Len Roberts, president of the Radio Shack division since 1993, estimated that the new repair business could generate $ 500 million per year by 1999. "America's technology store" was abandoned for the "you've got questions, we've got answers" slogan in 1994. In early summer 1995, the company changed its logo; "Radio Shack"

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2144-460: The above definition of a register. The following table shows the number of registers in several mainstream CPU architectures. Note that in x86 -compatible processors, the stack pointer ( ESP ) is counted as an integer register, even though there are a limited number of instructions that may be used to operate on its contents. Similar caveats apply to most architectures. Although all of the below-listed architectures are different, almost all are in

2211-537: The chain, long accustomed to charging wide margins on specialized products not readily available from other local retailers, into direct competition against vendors such as Best Buy and Walmart . In May 2000, the company dropped the Tandy name altogether, becoming RadioShack Corporation. The leather operating assets were sold to The Leather Factory on November 30, 2000; that business remains profitable. House brands Realistic and Optimus were discontinued. In 1999,

2278-500: The command "MON" in BASIC or by causing a trap, i.e. writing/reading to/from protected addresses or executing an illegal instruction. In the case of a trap, "Trap!" will be displayed in the Monitor and the user can use it for debugging. When entering Monitor it shows a prompt on the first line, "Trap!" on the second line (if entered via a trap) and the CPU registers as they were right before

2345-646: The company agreed to carry RCA products in a five-year agreement for a "RCA Digital Entertainment Center" store-within-a-store. When the RCA contract ended, RadioShack introduced its own Presidian and Accurian brands, reviving the Optimus brand in 2005 for some low-end products. Enercell , a house brand for dry cell batteries, remained in use until approximately 2014. Most of the RadioShack house brands had been dropped when Tandy divested its manufacturing facilities in

2412-482: The company sold off the few remaining Allied retail stores and resumed using the Radio Shack name. Allied Electronics , the firm's industrial component operation, continued as a Tandy division until it was sold to Spartan Manufacturing in 1981. The longest-running product for Radio Shack was the AM-only Realistic Flavoradio, sold from 1972 to 2000, 28 years in three designs. This also made

2479-701: The early 1990s; the original list included: Realistic (stereo, hi-fi and radio), Archer (antenna rotors and boosters), Micronta (test equipment), Tandy (computers), TRS-80 (proprietary computer), ScienceFair (kits), DuoFone (landline telephony), Concertmate (music synthesizer), Enercell (cells and batteries), Road Patrol (radar detectors, bicycle radios), Patrolman (Realistic radio scanner ), Deskmate (software), KitchenMate , Stereo Shack , Supertape (recording tape), Mach One , Optimus (speakers and turntables), Flavoradio (pocket AM radios in various colours), Weatheradio , Portavision (small televisions) and Minimus (speakers). In 2000, RadioShack

2546-405: The existence of non-Tandy products. In the mid-1980s, Radio Shack began a transition from its proprietary 8-bit computers to its proprietary IBM PC compatible Tandy computers , removing the "Radio Shack" name from the product in an attempt to shake off the long-running nicknames "Radio Scrap" and "Trash 80" to make the product appeal to business users. Poor compatibility, shrinking margins and

2613-401: The expense of its core components business. RadioShack aggressively promoted Dish Network subscriptions. In November 2012, RadioShack introduced Amazon Locker parcel pick-up services at its stores, only to dump the program in September 2013. In 2013, the chain made token attempts to regain the do it yourself market, including a new "Do It Together" slogan. Long-time staff observed

2680-469: The first or last register in the integer register file is a pseudo-register in that it is hardwired to always return zero when read (mostly to simplify indexing modes), and it cannot be overwritten. In Alpha , this is also done for the floating-point register file. As a result of this, register files are commonly quoted as having one register more than how many of them are actually usable; for example, 32 registers are quoted when only 31 of them fit within

2747-425: The former RadioShack mail-order business determined where Tandy would locate new stores. As an incentive for them to work long hours and remain profitable, store managers were required to take an ownership stake in their stores. In markets too small to support a company-owned Radio Shack store, the chain relied on independent dealers who carried the products as a sideline. Charles D. Tandy said "We’re not looking for

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2814-402: The free vacuum tube testing offered in-store in the early 1970s, this small loss leader drew foot traffic . The cards also served as generic business cards for the salespeople. In 1970, Tandy Corporation bought Allied Radio Corporation (both retail and industrial divisions), merging the brands into Allied Radio Shack and closing duplicate locations. After a 1973 federal government review,

2881-499: The guy who wants to spend his entire paycheck on a sound system", instead seeking customers "looking to save money by buying cheaper goods and improving them through modifications and accessorizing", making it common among "nerds" and "kids aiming to excel at their science fairs". Charles D. Tandy , who had guided the firm through a period of growth in the 1960s and 1970s, died of a heart attack at age 60 in November 1978. In 1982,

2948-556: The lack of an operating system for cassette storage and said that compared to the TRS-80 Model 100's display, "the HX-20 looks primitive". The LCD is 120×32 pixels and is controlled by six μPD7227 LCD controller ICs each responsible for 40×16 pixels of the LCD. The μPD7227 uses a serial protocol and has two memory banks for switching between rows 0-7 and 8–15. It features multiple modes, including "Write", "Read", "AND", "OR" and "Character". The "character" mode draws characters from

3015-411: The microcassette, printer or RS-232. Data integrity could be preserved in the 4.0–6.0 V range. The power supply was rated for 8 W . Operating and charging it would tolerate 5–35  °C . Data integrity could be preserved at −5–40 °C . The HX-20 could be stored between −20–60 °C . The later, more popular TRS-80 Model 100 line , designed by Kyocera , owed much to the design of

3082-406: The name and address of purchasers so they could be added to mailing lists. Name and mailing address were requested for special orders (RadioShack Unlimited parts and accessories, Direc2U items not stocked locally), returns, check payments, RadioShack Answers Plus credit card applications, service plan purchases and carrier activations of cellular telephones. On December 20, 2005, RadioShack announced

3149-400: The number of bits they can hold, for example, an " 8-bit register", " 32-bit register", " 64-bit register", or even more. In some instruction sets , the registers can operate in various modes, breaking down their storage memory into smaller parts (32-bit into four 8-bit ones, for instance) to which multiple data (vector, or one-dimensional array of data) can be loaded and operated upon at

3216-416: The program type is different. The expansion unit added up to 16 KB of RAM and two ROM sockets. The latter could only be used by switching off the internal BASIC ROMS. Radio Shack RadioShack (formerly written as Radio Shack ) is an American electronics retailer , which was established in 1921 as an amateur radio mail-order business. Its original parent company, Radio Shack Corporation,

3283-436: The releases of Pentium Pro , Cyrix 6x86 , Nx586 , and AMD K5 . When a computer program accesses the same data repeatedly, this is called locality of reference . Holding frequently used values in registers can be critical to a program's performance. Register allocation is performed either by a compiler in the code generation phase, or manually by an assembly language programmer. Registers are normally measured by

3350-665: The sale of its newly built riverfront Fort Worth, Texas headquarters building to German-based KanAm Grund; the property was leased back to RadioShack for 20 years. In 2008, RadioShack assigned this lease to the Tarrant County College District (TCC), remaining in 400,000 square feet (37,000 m ) of the space as its headquarters. In 2005, RadioShack parted with Verizon for a 10-year agreement with Cingular (later AT&T) and renegotiated its 11-year agreement with Sprint. In July 2011, RadioShack ended its wireless partnership with T-Mobile , replacing it with

3417-597: The salespeople, merchandisers and advertisers. The number of items carried was cut from 40,000 to 2,500, as Tandy sought to "identify the 20% that represents 80% of the sales" and replace Radio Shack's handful of large stores with many "little holes in the wall", large numbers of rented locations which were easier to close and re-open elsewhere if one location didn't work out. Private-label brands from lower-cost manufacturers displaced name brands to raise Radio Shack profit margins; non-electronic lines from go-carts to musical instruments were abandoned entirely. Customer data from

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3484-514: The same time. Typically it is implemented by adding extra registers that map their memory into a larger register. Processors that have the ability to execute single instructions on multiple data are called vector processors . A processor often contains several kinds of registers, which can be classified according to the types of values they can store or the instructions that operate on them: Hardware registers are similar, but occur outside CPUs. In some architectures (such as SPARC and MIPS ),

3551-577: The single largest seller of consumer telecommunications products in the world; its stock reached its peak a year later. InterTAN , a former Tandy subsidiary, sold the Tandy UK stores in 1999 and the Australian stores in 2001. InterTAN was sold (with its Canadian stores) to rival Circuit City in 2004. The RadioShack brand remained in use in the United States , but the 21st century proved

3618-458: The standard set of ROMs for the HX-20, this value is E000, the start of ROM #0. ROM #2 and #3 contains the BASIC interpreter. If the BASIC ROMs are removed from the motherboard, the BASIC option in the main menu will disappear, leaving only MONITOR. This is because ROM #3 contains a program header which is detected by the menu routines. This works the same for all user-created programs, except

3685-548: The stores in frustration. Demand for consumer electronics was also increasingly being weakened by consumers buying the items online . In early 2004, RadioShack introduced Fix 1500 , a sweeping program to "correct" inventory and profitability issues company-wide. The program put the 1,500 lowest-graded store managers, of over 5,000, on notice of the need to improve. Managers were graded not on tangible store and personnel data but on one-on-one interviews with district management. Processor register A processor register

3752-532: The test proved successful, RadioShack could have moved to convert existing RadioShack locations into PointMobl stores in certain markets. While some PointMobl products, such as car power adapters and phone cases, were carried as store-brand products in RadioShack stores, the stand-alone PointMobl stores were closed and the concept abandoned in March 2011. In August 2009, RadioShack rebranded itself as "The Shack". The campaign increased sales of mobile products, but at

3819-488: The top of the memory hierarchy , and provide the fastest way to access data. The term normally refers only to the group of registers that are directly encoded as part of an instruction, as defined by the instruction set . However, modern high-performance CPUs often have duplicates of these "architectural registers" in order to improve performance via register renaming , allowing parallel and speculative execution . Modern x86 design acquired these techniques around 1995 with

3886-504: Was a complete pre-assembled system at a time when many microcomputers were built from kits, backed by a nationwide retail chain when computer stores were in their infancy. Sales of the initial, primitive US$ 600 (equal to $ 3,017 today) TRS-80 exceeded all expectations despite its limited capabilities and high price. This was followed by the TRS-80 Color Computer in 1980, designed to attach to a television. Tandy also inspired

3953-525: Was added in 1980 (model 166a). The case was redesigned for 1987, making it taller and thinner, and it came in red, blue, and black. The final model, 201a, came in 1996 and was designed around an integrated circuit. They were first made in Korea then Hong Kong and finally the Philippines. The Flavoradio carried the Realistic name until about 1996, when it switched to "Radio Shack", then finally "Optimus". When

4020-517: Was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and subsequently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy . In May 2015, the company's assets, including the RadioShack brand name and related intellectual property , were purchased by General Wireless, a subsidiary of Standard General , for US$ 26.2 million. In March 2017, General Wireless and subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy, claiming that a store-within-a-store partnership with Sprint

4087-685: Was looking for other hobbyist-related businesses into which it could expand. Charles D. Tandy saw the potential of Radio Shack and retail consumer electronics, purchasing the company in 1962 for US$ 300,000. At the time of the Tandy Radio Shack & Leather 1962 acquisition, the Radio Shack chain was nearly bankrupt. Tandy's strategy was to appeal to hobbyists. It created small stores that were staffed by people who knew electronics, and sold mainly private brands. Tandy closed Radio Shack's unprofitable mail-order business, ended credit purchases and eliminated many top management positions, keeping

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4154-451: Was not as profitable as expected. As a result, RadioShack shuttered several company-owned stores and announced plans to shift its business primarily online. RadioShack was acquired by Retail Ecommerce Ventures, a holding company owned by Alex Mehr and self-help influencer Tai Lopez, in November 2020. RadioShack operated primarily as an e-commerce website with a network of independently owned and franchised RadioShack stores, as well as

4221-466: Was one of multiple backers of the CueCat barcode reader, which soon turned out to be a marketing failure. The company had invested US$ 35 million in the concept, including printing the barcodes throughout its catalogs, and distributing CueCat devices to customers at no charge. The last annual RadioShack printed catalogs were distributed to the public in 2003. Until 2004, RadioShack routinely asked for

4288-663: Was purchased by Tandy Corporation in 1962, shifting its focus from radio equipment to hobbyist electronic components. At its peak in 1999, Tandy operated over 8,000 RadioShack stores in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and under the Tandy name in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The 21st century proved to be a period of long decline. In February 2015, after years of management crises, poor worker relations, diminished revenue, and 11 consecutive quarterly losses, RadioShack

4355-595: Was spelled in camel case as "RadioShack". In 1996, RadioShack successfully petitioned the US Federal Communications Commission to allocate frequencies for the Family Radio Service , a short-range walkie-talkie system that proved popular. From the 1960s until the early 1990s, Radio Shack promoted a "battery of the month" club; a free wallet -sized cardboard card offered one free Enercell per month in-store. Like

4422-400: Was started as Radio Shack in 1921 by two brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, who wanted to provide equipment for the new field of amateur radio (also known as ham radio ). The brothers opened a one-store retail and mail-order operation in the heart of downtown Boston at 46 Brattle Street . They chose the name " Radio Shack ", which was the term for a small, wooden structure that housed

4489-427: Was the world's largest electronics chain. In June 1991, Tandy closed or restructured its 200 Radio Shack Computer Centers, acquired Computer City , and attempted to shift its emphasis away from components and cables, toward mainstream consumer electronics. Tandy sold its computer manufacturing to AST Research in 1993, including the laptop computer Grid Systems Corporation which it had purchased in 1988. It sold

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