I'm wondering how this'll impact the availability of parts.

I mean, anything I can buy at Radio Shack, I can buy cheaper at the local shop (or even online), but still, it was nice having a commercial option.

I'm guessing if you want to go to Radio Shack to buy diodes, capacitors, and extension cords, that stuff will still be there, but it'll be in a curtained-off room at the back of the store like porn in a video store (well, what few video stores are left).

Up here it's there but the selection is kind of not directed at the hobbyist as much. You can still buy a resistor but you have to buy the 900 valu-pak of various ohm resistors made in china or whatever.

Still, it's .50 so you pull out the one resistor you actually need and just chuck the rest.

And also on the other hand it costs you .50 to fix your turntable strobe light so you don't give a fuck.

Over here, Fry's has an entire aisle or two that is essentially everything an 80's Radio Shack provided. Diodes, fuses, etc.

Radio Shack is the last resort. Like, I blew a fuse in something, Fry's won't restock that specific fuse until next week and I don't want to order online. In the end, the lone drawer in the corner of the Radio Shack that holds fuses will be significantly smaller than it was the last time I was in there and...it won't have the fuse I need either.

I am to radio shack how the fuck NASA guy is to NASA. Fuck your nostalgia, Tandy computers were always dogshit.

Counterpoint: they are pretty much the last bastion for casual "weird shit" buying like if you need a thing to connect your Atari VCS to an HDTV they have it, and some of their cheap crappy shit is actually useful (like this RadioShack timer I bought 10 years ago to time the Quad while playing Quake 2 competitively and still use to this day to time hops additions for nanobrewing).

I worked for the big box version of Radio Shack, Incredible Universe, in the mid to late 90s before the whole company filed bankruptcy and reorganized as "The Radio Shack Company".

I spent an entire 8-hour shift assembling metal hooks and plastic tags into coherent wholes so that, from that day forward, we would have ready-made tags at hand the next time we had a promotion the whole day. Eight hours. Just shovin' metal hooks through plastic loops. Sorting them into boxes. "This is depressing work," I thought, "But once it's done, no one else will have to do this for months." OH AND LOOK WHAT IMMEDIATELY HAPPENED. THE GOD OF LAVA BARFED ON MY WORK LIKE TEN SECONDS LATER.

Another thing: My job was the worst combination of easy and difficult ever. Because I worked like a mile from every major movie studio ever, exactly half of our customers would be shambling mummies asking if we sold "adapters" for "the computer," while the other half would be technicians for the next Pirates of the Franchise film. Half of my job was agonizingly tedious, while half was hunting down a piece of copper wire so Johnny Depp didn't die fighting the Kraken, which, to my understanding, no one released because I couldn't find the right cable.

I also worked at the shack for a whole year. I smoked a lot of weed and started hanging out with a bad crowd. fortunately I got accepted to grad school and left, but I shudder to think what would have happened had I stayed there.

I ate a whole month's supply of Adderrall every shift because I thought it would make the inventory system somewhat fascinating. It did, so congratulations Shire Pharmaceuticals: You successfully manipulated my brain.

See now, if you really want to talk Shack, how about the Tandy Whiz kids? Who could ever forget...

The Computers That Said No To Drugs
http://www.atarimagazines.com/whizkids/thumbs.php?issue=drugs< br />
And a personal fave, Deadly Choice
http://www.atarimagazines.com/whizkids/thumbs.php?issue=deadly choice

Stop writing like this is Tumblr.

I bet Arlen, Texas, if it actually existed, would have a totally boss Radio Shack in Arlen Mall.

oh dude, upselling and getting personal information was ALL I was told to do at the Shack ca. 2000-2001. 'you want batteries with that?' was as good as a cash register sound for a dude making minimum wage plus commission.

Also, and I know they changed this pretty soon after I left, for awhile the bonuses for selling a cell phone were ridiculous. When I started it was / phone. So if you were in an urban area in 2000, when phones were selling hot, you could make an extra -0 a day if you were willing to lie your ass off about how Verizon has great customer service and Sprint has the best coverage.

Like I said above, it helped to be wasted at work. Being told to lie by managers, having to deal with really ignorant people all day, and having to work with sociopaths and thieves didn't help the Mothership's psyche, but it did teach him to sell ice to Eskimos.