RadioShack has hit the end of the line. The 94-year-old electronics chain, filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday after striking a deal to sell up to 2,400 of its stores to the wireless service provider Sprint. What holds for the 27,000 employees, at this point no one knows, how many stores will be left open, once again no one knows but this was one of the major players in the early microcomputer days.
RadioShack known for electronic parts and the TRS-80 computer has drastically changed in the last 10 years trying to keep up with the Best Buy and Walmart, by selling phones, contracts and various other things that no one wanted to go to a RadioShack to purchase. When they introduced the TRS-80, RadioShack still had the image of a electronics shop where you could get parts for your record players, radios or anything a hobbyist needed to build in their basements.
The real problem as with all businesses, either you keep up with the times or you get thrown to the side. That is what happened with RadioShack, they could not get any going after the calculators and TRS-80s era, instead they went with boom boxes, remote cars and even televisions. The electronic parts area became smaller and smaller actually turning useless. Their web site also was lame.
Yes, they were somewhat dingy but they helped in making the computer market what it was before IBM came in to overtake them. Sprint has told folks that they are going to keep between 1500 to 1750 stores open but with a Sprint banner and most likely a RadioShack corner.