Hacker Culture A to Z

Chapter 18. R

Radio

See “Akihabara, Tokyo”, “Baer, Ralph”, “Captain Crunch (John Draper)”, “Carr, Iris”, “Electronics”, “Ham radio”, “Hewlett-Packard (HP)”, “Lamarr, Hedy”, “Morse code”, “RadioShack”, “Tokyo Denki University”, “2600 (Twenty-Six Hundred): The Hacker Quarterly (magazine)”

RadioShack

RadioShack (originally spelled Radio Shack) was a hacker’s dream retailer. Founded in 1921 by brothers Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, the chain sold mostly radio equipment. When it faced financial difficulties in the early 1960s, the Tandy corporation purchased the company and expanded its offerings, even adding a store electronics brand. Radio Shack flourished. In 1977, the chain launched its very own personal computer, the TRS-80 (TRS stood for “Tandy Radio Shack”). It sold quite well for a few years.

RadioShack had about 8,000 stores worldwide at its 1999 peak. Like many hackers of my generation, I have fond childhood memories of shopping at Radio Shack in the 1980s and 1990s. I was awed by all the amateur radio equipment, antennas, televisions, remote-controlled toy cars and helicopters, digital clocks, personal computers and calculators, and other home electronics and electrical equipment. When I wanted to learn how to make simple electronics using a lemon as a battery, my late father took me to Radio Shack for a kit. These kits, for which Radio Shack was well known, were basically decorated circuit boards under cardboard that came with a collection of wires that could be connected ...