Radioshack files Chapter 11.

[Adinnieken]

Sadly this is all the work of Len Roberts, who began disassembling Tandy Corporation back in the early 1990's.

Prior to the mid-90's, Tandy Corporation was both an electronics retailer, as well as an electronics manufacturer. Everything that Radio Shack sold was manufactured by Tandy Corporation or for Tandy Corporation in mutually owned factories. This retailer/manufacturer duality had, prior to the 1990's, given Tandy Corporation strength and stability during weak economic periods.

It also made Tandy Corporation one of the top innovators in America. Where most people today see Apple and Microsoft as innovators in electronics, it was Tandy Corporation that had been pushing the envelopes, especially in the early 1990's. Tandy was the only American corporation that worked on a rewritable CD, called THOR-CD during development. Tandy Corporation developed a digital tape format that competed with DAT, but also offered backward compatibility with standard analog cassette tapes. Tandy created the Lineaum Tweeter, a tweeter that rather than reverberate like a cone, reverberated like a guitar string. The Tandy/RadioShack TRS-80 Model I was the first manufactured computer (not in kit form) available at retail. While all other computer manufacturers were offering 4-color VGA, Tandy computers offered 16-color CGA.

Tandy weren't simply pioneers in creating their own products, however. They also worked with other manufacturers that were unheard of in the US at the time. Companies like Nokia. The partnership between Tandy corporation and Nokia helped to establish Nokia as a brand in the US. Although Nokia phones were initially sold as RadioShack mobile phones, RadioShack was the first nation-wide chain to carry Nokia phones. V-Tech is a brand that had largely been unheard of in the US, until RadioShack stores began selling V-Tech phones. Tandy had a long-standing relationship with Pioneer, one that existed for decades. With the exception of turntables, and some tape cassette decks, Pioneer manufactured stereo equipment for Tandy. While Western Digital is almost a household name brand for computer hard drives today, back in the 1990's when Tandy Corporation had began working with them, they were a bit player in computer storage attempting to make headway with the concept of having a portion of the controller board affixed to the drive. Something unheard of in prior to Western Digital's development of IDE along with the 3.5" HDD. RadioShack was the first company to standardize their PCs on Western Digital 3.5" IDE HDDs.

What Tandy Corporation became as a result of Len Robert's divestiture of the corporation is RadioShack Corporation. A floundered in the late 90's, into the 2000's trying to find a niche to fill. Long-standing partnerships died, short-term partnerships fizzled, and what RadioShack stores were known for was lost.

Some may say RadioShack is/was for nerds, but the reality is it was an electronic store for the do-it-yourselfer. You could get well-built equipment from RadioShack. I doubt there are much better speakers on the market today than the Optimus MACH-III or Pro-7's.

For those who believe it's a store whose time has passed, only for the store that it has become today. The Tandy Corporation, the RadioShack that existed before Len Roberts took the reins of the company, was a company that innovated and moved the industry with compelling products and concepts. They weren't simply and also-ran retailer hocking someone else's wares.

If RadioShack truly goes under, lament their passing, because they were the last American company that innovated. Not by creating everything, but by working with various companies to develop new consumer products that were innovative.