[Coco] "The Shack" re-branding

[William Schaub]

Ries, Rich (NY80) wrote:
> "RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as "The Shack"
> as well as re-building corporate culture. ... Tandy is gone and so is
> Radio Shack in a few days."
>
> Odd thoughts:
> (1) There is a book out called "The Shack." Wonder if the lawyers are
> starting to drool...
> (2) Tandy lost me when (a) they went to PC-clones and (b) they stopped
> carrying the electronic components they used to. Sure the components
> were over-priced, but if you really REALLY needed a part for a project,
> you could usually get it.
>
>   
Item #2 is the one that did it for me. I swear they just want to make 
themselves irrelevant and go out of business.
They certainly removed every reason they really had to exist and set 
them apart from other retail stores.

I really want to see the old Radio Shack return or at least a chain a 
lot like what RS used to be.

Actually I think a return of 8 bit microcomputers (or any small easily 
understood and programmable machine at the hardware level) would be 
great as a way to bring up a new generation of software developers. I 
know I wouldn't be where I am today without being exposed to the coco at 
home and apple II and c64 machines (and of course early pcs and macs) at 
school.

There really is no substitute today for the simple home computers of the 
80s where you could read the manual and get started right away learning 
how computers work and learning programming. but not only that but 
learning that the computer really is just a simple machine that executes 
instructions given to it and not some horribly complex magic box that 
nobody knows about.  I'm not seriously suggesting people use such 
systems for normal computing, just that they should be used for early 
introduction to computers so that people have a hands on practical  
introduction to computers and software on a simple easily understood 
system. so they can learn the basic overall concepts that they can apply 
to larger more modern systems.