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  • Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing and this is the thing that I haven't done in a while that is take a look at

  • some different catalogs

  • Advertisements Flyers circulars what-have-you for different retailers both dead and alive and this one is pretty much dead

  • Unfortunately, this is RadioShack. We're gonna be taking a look at two different catalogues here one from April of

  • 1979 it's a bit before my time

  • But I'm intrigued by a lot of the stuff that is probably going to be in here

  • I say probably because I'm looking through these yet

  • and then also this one here that I'm much more nostalgic for cuz I remember it is the RadioShack Christmas catalog December of

  • 1991 and let's go ahead and dive into this because I find this to be

  • insanely intriguing

  • For a couple of reasons one to get some sort of first-hand knowledge of what some of these items cost and how they were

  • Advertising them which oddly enough can be very much lost a time

  • Especially for these kind of circulars and ads and flyers and things that you would see

  • that were either sent directly to people in the mail box which I believe these were and

  • Also, they were just stuck into the middle like an insert inside of newspapers during Sundays

  • There's very few archives of them online so

  • Anytime that I find them like in a bundle on eBay or whatever?

  • I buy them, so let's look through them and hope to we find something interesting in here

  • RadioShack

  • kind of sad that they're gone the last one finally closed recently nearby and I've already missed them a little bit because

  • Sometimes you just needed a weird thing and they had it anyway

  • I'm sure we're gonna be seeing plenty of weird things in here

  • Let's get right to it starting with the Chairman's thoughts as is their largest sales flyer of the year. That's nice

  • And he's pushing this Memorex

  • It's almost a that way

  • It was a thousand dollars

  • And then as $8.99 for a pretty sleek looking video VHS camcorder the world's smallest and lightest full-size one apparently

  • sweet stuff that would have been awesome in 91 and of course a

  • Very fond memories of these clear phones

  • I had one of these seems like everyone did at one point or another there was just a lot of clear electronics and 90's period

  • Game boys and consoles and phones and just everything calculators, whatever

  • So we have some spectacular gifts from our video. Shaq a lot of Memorex gifts apparently Memorex Memorex memorized Memorex this one's awesome

  • 400 bucks auto head cleaning Plus MTS stereo and broadcasts

  • And I've seen like these stacked up and Goodwill's fraud like a dollar

  • And yeah some realistic thingies in here too and mixed in between the Memorex realistic was their in-house brand in case you're not aware

  • So yea RadioShack had their cheaper alternatives like these here's a little pocket color TV

  • I never actually knew anyone that had one of those, but I would thought they were extremely cool

  • They were definitely a central place to go for audio programmable portable CD player

  • They're 420 bucks not bad was

  • $179 and what is what the as seen on TV here as seen on TV see on TV

  • What TV station was putting these? Yeah well?

  • Now here we go some high five stacks and

  • Assorted things that the while these aren't the greatest ones these are all realistic brand not anything that I would necessarily go for nowadays even

  • Though they look like aesthetically very pleasing. I got to love the woodgrain everything seems like everyone had one

  • I don't remember why

  • It was always there it was like a stack things and components

  • And he had some big friggin speakers that were too big for we never played music that loud we had giant speakers anyway

  • And you know glass on the front there which was sweet. I just like moving that glass door

  • RadioShack gifts for people on the go, yes RadioShack sold radios. They were a shack for radios. Yeah, we got CB radios

  • stereo cassettes walkie-talkies shortwave radios

  • Some other crap this one's ridiculously expensive. What is that 2 meter VHF FM ham transceiver?

  • Goodness, and we have a nice deal on pull out here. Oh

  • What oh it's an am/fm CD player?

  • I guess that goes and oh yeah dashboard CD player for 360 bucks. My dad ended up putting one in his Mitsubishi truck

  • Sometime in the mid 90s mid late 90s. I guess was late 90s. I don't know, but it was like oh, man

  • it was so cool and

  • I had no clue that Tammi did cell phones. What is this personal size cellphone goes anywhere?

  • That's pretty neat, so I'm intrigued

  • I love Tandy stuff as you've probably seen if you saw my video a while back where I went into Radio Shack just before they

  • Shut down and bought some Tandy things

  • They brought back the brand right at the end car or carry you could put this one in the car or carry it around

  • It's the future

  • Ask Santa Claus for your own Tandy facts

  • Santa Claus give me a fax machine. I can just imagine 90 Santa getting orders for fax machines on his pager

  • And he's like oh, I just got a page about a fax machine better put it my Trapper Keeper

  • And he writes his notes in a Trapper Keeper right next to a like a folder of a Lamborghini Countach

  • Yeah, 90s Santa was the best

  • he's

  • comedy

  • outgoing message cassettes you give rich little volume one into comedy edition and Julie Dee's yeah

  • I remember that being a thing there was one of our family friends had an answering machine

  • They looked they were much older than this, but yeah they

  • Had some Australian actor sounding dude doing the answering thing and it was funny

  • I guess because it was like oh, they're not Australian huh, I don't know man

  • This is the kind of area of this catalogue that I was really wanting to get to because holy crap computers

  • by Tandy its Tandy 1000 rl/hd oh and

  • Then this one right here was this an 11-10 HD. Yep. Oh

  • I want them both I

  • Still do even though. I have this one

  • I want another one why not because it looks so new and fresh and clean then they're not yellowed at all. They look so nice

  • Mmm. I don't know what this is about what is this Good Housekeeping promises a limited warranty to consumers

  • replacement or refund if

  • Defective is like Good Housekeeping gonna come by and give me a new Tandy if it breaks like the magazine

  • What is that check this out though? Holy nuts?

  • 40 megabyte hard drive for

  • $400 or

  • $349 as it's on sale during Christmas. That's a lot. That's more than I expected even. What are these oh?

  • Well, I guess these are smart dry so they're a little different

  • Maybe these I've never used before like these 11 10s

  • And the 1100 series kind of computers of it's a really cool form factor

  • and I like the fact that they have you know they run like a full ms-dos and

  • Tandy Deskmate and other things either using NEC v20

  • But it's cool. It's a little compact thing that runs Das and holy crap Oh

  • Baby, this is the this is the centerfold computer of the catalog literally the center?

  • In this very room. I'm proud of that. These are some of these are kind of hard to find

  • This is an interesting little computer though Tandy 1000 RLX HD. It's a

  • 286

  • ten megahertz 1 Meg of RAM once again and a VGA

  • Okay, here we go special purchase sound blaster incredible PC card with 11 voice music MIDI interface in software

  • 140 dollars and you know if you were to hear one of these brand-new in box today like an eBay that still be a pretty

  • Good deal

  • South guards are getting darn collectible

  • Gift problems solve them electronically yeah

  • it's still my go-to piece of advice for myself got pocket calculators a sweet-looking friggin dinner and watch a

  • Compact disc table clock which confuses me. I did not know that they sold those in stores

  • I've seen like a million iterations of this that people just make themselves

  • With like a clock kit and an old CD and put them together, but maybe at the time

  • It was more novel and worth $15. I don't know

  • Yeah, these little Franklin dealios. These are kind of neat actually I have a few of them like this one

  • You know the advanced spellchecker pretty much just a dictionary

  • Get some language translators a kid spell checker with built-in games

  • That would be pretty fun to look at dictionary thesaurus language trainer, so those are kind of neat

  • I pick those up sometimes when I find them in thrift stores and

  • Yeah, here we go here. Here's some of the cheaper junk that I really expected from RadioShack

  • And it always amuses me is like well. They're actually advertising some of this garbage like here's a $5

  • Flavor Radio yes these tasteful am radios for five bucks

  • including blackberry blueberry and strawberry

  • Yeah, I've got a blackberry

  • Am/fm bike radio with horn. That would have been amazing I woulda loved that as a kid. I was a weather radio, cube

  • I've run across one of these in a thrift store not too long ago

  • It's just like a little cube, and it's all clad in wood grain

  • And it's got a neat little button on the top

  • And it just picks up the weather or weather radio station up to 25 miles away. It's just a cube. It's like wood green

  • The colors of Christmas at a light display here

  • Little plasma ball, and that was on 90 staple definitely had one of those

  • Same with a strobe light we have this exact same one clad and woodgrain like that the same design and everything

  • I thought I think we got ours at Spencer's a

  • hundred caroling lights

  • Computerized lights when is this twenty one all-time favorite Christmas carols they dance in time with the music realistic keyboards now

  • That's something

  • I have never ever run across in a thrift store realistic is just not a brand that I see very often and as far as

  • keyboards

  • Rep like a pro this Christmas aha yeah with your $79

  • Realistic concert mate 800 wrap up your gift list

  • huh

  • With 25 tones 30 rhythms three drum pads dual sound scratch table and a mic

  • I'm using I'm not really sure how that works I'd kind of love to pick one of those up to be honest

  • and then I would send it to a bit keys because

  • That's just not my expertise area at all

  • Here we go though. These are awesome. I remember these little science kits is one of those things

  • It's like I wanted and then you get it. Just like I don't know what to do with this

  • I got chemistry set and I had one of those and I didn't know what to do with that

  • Oh here

  • We go LCD action games for all ages tabletop space alien table die baseball tabletop football

  • Executive consultant great for those difficult decisions. What was with these I?

  • Reviewed one of these on odd where it was a little different form factor obviously

  • But these executive consultant devices are confusing just the toss-up

  • You might as well use a magic 8-ball, which I did in that video stress Eliminator sound off during stressful situations with zapper

  • Ratatat alien laser shot bombs away quick shot or blaster

  • Why if there was an executive with one of those on his desk? I would probably be questioning the executive decisions

  • Anyway, we have some exciting action toys all of these like remember laser pistol and space pistol and laser sword and electronic

  • rifle

  • is all look like just the most generic things and

  • Honestly, that's kind of why I find them so charming like what is this puppy watch

  • It's not any branded anything. There's nothing tying this to anything

  • futuristic galactic man

  • electronic pick-up sticks

  • Handheld rap mic. There's another one of those things great gift for pint-sized rap masters

  • Let them rap like a pro. This is 1991 all right pet a bull radios. It's a radio inside of a stuffed animal

  • That's amusing oh

  • Here we go

  • These are pretty cool. That was one thing

  • I always loved going into Radio Shack for the 90s was because of all the remote-control cars sometimes

  • They would have them like like actually set up, and you could play them and stuff that was pretty rad

  • Remote-controlled dinosaur, that's a two foot tall dinosaur. That's pretty awesome. I would still buy one of those

  • I don't know who they contracted to like make these and maybe they made them in-house. I don't know it was seen on TV though

  • Turbo Raceway see battle spell in math

  • It's like a Speak & Spell that like not all these weird little not quite licensed things check this out

  • Stack challenge game stack the bricks, and win yeah, we can't call it Tetris. You know his Tetris

  • we know his Tetris, but we're not gonna tell you because

  • Issues

  • That's radios Jack. It's

  • It's wonderful

  • well that was the 90s, but let's go back even further and take a look at the

  • 1979 Spring Sale from Radio Shack here starting with the

  • compact 2-way hi-fi speaker system by realistic with a trumpet I

  • Guess I don't know I mean why why is that there just because it has a tweeter

  • Put an instrument on there and all them automatically that's better either way. That's some fantastic covering for the speaker there and the wood grain

  • I'm hoping there's gonna be a lot of I know there's gonna be a lot of wood grain in here, so

  • All sorts of 8-track stuff straight away. We got Porter blade tracks

  • car 8-track players oh

  • Yeah, 8-track cartridge cases blank tapes and lazy's isn't sweet

  • Like it costs 259 for an 80-minute blank 8-track and a dollar ninety-nine for a 40-minute. This is pretty sweet 8-track deck with Dolby

  • Asterisk who's the asterisk I'll Dobby noise

  • reduction well of course

  • I don't know why I'll say it could have meant

  • With Dolby like like a guy named Dolby it comes with him

  • What does this come with vu meters dual lighted glow red during record orange during playback?

  • Oh, that's a cool feature. I like that anyway

  • Yeah, we got CB radios because of course I gotta say I like this one telephone type mobile CB

  • Like like I having a car phone except not yeah, man people want a car phone so bad

  • telephone type C V console that thing is

  • Intense imagine just going down the road and seeing somebody with a full-size like handheld telephone receiver

  • Like whoa? What does that person from the future? What is this this is 1979?

  • More stereos and these I gotta say are a million times more appealing than the ones in the 90s these look good

  • I would happily take any of these if they were like brand-new conditions even though they're realistic and probably not the best

  • Manual stereo phone. I want a pedestal the heck is this look at that thing

  • That's wild. I want that limited-edition sound Odyssey direct to disc enjoy these big hits

  • What star wars team evergreen 2001 theme theme from Rocky the way we were or the way we were

  • Chef themed SWAT team Lady Sings the Blues all on one record for 417 are 497 holy nuts. That's a

  • weird selection at the Disco sweep clean your records with a sweep disco Tron 1979

  • Disco all the things

  • Peak of the action with a pocket Skinner

  • VHF marine VHF, whether police fire all sorts of cool little things variable squelch

  • Yeah more things today. Need variable squelch as a feature FM radio cassette player for your car. That's pretty awesome

  • Like seriously that thing looks awesome. I like that a little indicator right there for ya easy view dual F

  • M dials dual dials. It's just like this thing

  • That's neat and these these folks here with their your supercool car that car's not really super cool at all

  • But I would still own it

  • The best an auto sound new super radar detector 200 bucks

  • Modern styled in - quartz digital car clock

  • Elegant style blends with any interior, that's elegant style right there. It's a rectangle oh

  • And

  • The centerfold is quite appropriate in this one - just wood grain for miles

  • - sensational stereo receiver buys those are both some slick looking receivers

  • I gotta say it's interesting to see like a shiny black with woodgrain like that. You know. I don't really see this

  • Super often. I usually see like at least some more

  • Silvery metal trim around the black if that's the case, but this was just like on black on woodgrain

  • I kind of like that it's nice

  • Okay, so all this is like the Radio Shack II type of components now you notice that was really kind of missing from the 90s

  • catalog

  • But this is what a lot of Radio Shack was known for especially in the 70s and 80s

  • Was just all of these little components like check it out. You can get a red LED here for a dollar twenty nine a tri-state

  • LED

  • Breadboards test clips cable kits toggle switches man. Just a toggle switch

  • Wood Green

  • Aluminum cabinet. I need that I don't even know what I would use it for I just need it

  • This is TV RF interface project board miniature TV transmitter except black and white or color video signal perfect for use

  • with micro computers and TV typewriters

  • and this these are some things that it can be kind of hard to get information on as far as pricing and

  • Like really nailed down specifics from a very specific time period one reason I love these catalogues oh

  • Oh, yeah, here we go

  • 1979

  • the

  • trs-80 level - 16 K

  • Don't be surprised when it surprises you yes the wonderful trash 80 here for a thousand bucks as features

  • You don't expect from a computer costing under a grand now features like automatic line numbering sixteen digit accuracy and formatted print

  • New numeric keypad oh my god comes with a numpad. That's really cool

  • I was hoping that it had some computer ads in here and there is one

  • We're in a whole lot of computers to choose from and this is pretty much

  • the only one radio jack was selling at the time, so

  • Trs-80 quick printer now this is something. I've actually never seen what is that 150 lines per minute 20 40 or 80 characters per line?

  • learned program basic

  • statistical analysis double precision subroutines

  • Computers

  • And I you know not a game listed

  • Not a single piece of like interesting software as far as like what I would go for but that's okay

  • That's just great though equipped with accessories below it can fill many needs for the educator scientist program or even large business owner

  • You can tell who they were going for here educators scientists programmers and business owners

  • Got some little weather radios digital clocks a compact am/fm stereo system I see those from time to time at thrift stores. Those are

  • They're kind of appealing because they're just like a little small like electronic wood grain box that does the radio and it's about it

  • New

  • This is pretty interesting now 32 call automatic memory dialer makes calling push-button easy no more time wasted

  • To dialing numbers eliminates repeatedly looking up the same number ah what?

  • They programmed office mom married church jonbi babysitter pharmacy dentist service station bank broker weather

  • And of course you got your emergency stuff in there. It's an amusing list that they chose

  • It even dials area codes tells you the time elapsed as digital

  • Clock is the future guys and then these are just fun like old intercoms you ever find a good pair of

  • If all the intercoms a-- i'd recommend grabbing them and trying it out and here we go is more some more

  • Sciency things I get some science fair kits solid-state power supply with remote sensing. That's pretty sweet

  • photo relay detection system

  • Silent round-the-clock century works as an alarm against intruders put a beam of light to work for you. I

  • Love it

  • Custom design your own soldering iron. This is the kind of crap you

  • Just don't see anywhere anymore as far as like an actual store go on a Radio Shack and design your own soldering iron, man

  • This makes all the nerdiness just float up to the top you know, and I just want to

  • you know make a make a kits of electronics and

  • Just put it together, and it does nothing but make a sound

  • But I would be satisfied don't become a statistic smoke can kill you fire authorities studies show that most victims Redden's

  • Dire before the flames even reach them all man. Where is as is sale does that mean?

  • Deep price cuts on everything eyes close out stuff

  • So is the junk you really want to get rid of so here?

  • It is some really cheap like record players and am/fm things a mini pocket recorder a mini

  • micro mini set

  • micro mini set pocket recorder

  • Rechargeable drill that's cool didn't know that those were around at that point but sure

  • and they last little bit here than one plug on walkie-talkie because why not RadioShack and

  • We're close by come in and get your neighborhood store

  • Get acquainted all these states

  • There was not one in North Carolina where I am so I mean, maybe they were but it's not listed here

  • That's interesting. I thought that would have been more, but maybe this is just a small selection of

  • particular radio shacks

  • Well anyway that is really it for this particular episode of LG are just want to do it taking a look back add some Radio

  • Shack because it's fun and the companies

  • Well, and they're not doing well. I don't know what if they're gonna come back or not

  • But probably not and who knows so with Radio Shack. There's like a zombie of

  • electronic stores I

  • Kind of hope they do or at least somebody picks them up and does something with them, and they start selling those cool components again

  • Because it'd be nice just because it'd be nice to have a local alternative

  • But I hope that you enjoyed this episode and maybe it brought back some nostalgia for certain things

  • Devices software hardware all that kind of stuff, and if you did like this then perhaps

  • You'd like to see some of my other videos

  • Or we take a look at all sorts of things new and old because that's what I do and as always

  • Thank you very much for watching LGR

Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing and this is the thing that I haven't done in a while that is take a look at

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