Remember those Radio Shack catalogs?

Most of them are now online....

Vintage Radio Shack catalogs....online

Re-live the glory days of the CD-3400 portable CD player, the Mach I speakers, the Realistic Minimus 7 speakers, the TRS-80 computer, etc.

 

Wow, thanks!

 

Wow, those are great!! I miss seeing real stereos in stores. I don't understand why people wouldn't want a "real" componant stereo system anymore. Looking through these catalogues reminds me of how great those stereos were.

 

I don't remember the catalogs, but I remember the free battery club.
I use to go in there once a month just to get my battery, and to get my card punched.
I don't think I ever saw a card to completion.

 

OMG, excellent! 1982: "Turn on to the great sound of Realistic components today"! I used to pore over those catalogs, then get on my bike and go buy stuff like patch cables, tape head cleaners, etc. Major flashback!

 

Thanks for this. It really brings back memories, my Dad used to keep multiple copies of these around the house when I was a kid.

 

Times certainly have changed. Loved those catalogs and the Lafayette Catalogs as well.

 

I remember that, even if you were a junior-hi kid with a weird stereo fetish, you could still own this catalog, and take it to show your audiophile friends what you "would" own if you could afford more than just that free catalog!

 

I guess I didn't become aware of RS until the mid 60's. I had no idea that they sold McIntosh gear in 1961. By the mid 60's most of that was gone and they mainly had Realistic gear.

 

My first "real stereo" was Radio Shack. A TRS-80 receiver (if I remember right), 8" 2-way speakers, and a Lab-something turntable. It was great, and the envy of my peers! It was my birthday present. My dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday (being 14 then) I said a stereo. So off to Radio Shack we went.

The Heathkit catalogs were even better, in my opinion. They had that gargantuan 200-watt SS power amplifier!

 

Even better...remember Lafayette Radio catalogs?

http://reel2reeltexas.com/cat70Lafay.html

 

The TRS-80 was RS's home computer!

 

My first computer was a Trash 80.
With the cassette player.:thumbsdn:

 

Ah, the TRS-80... the first computer I ever used. My elementary school had two rooms full of TRS-80 Color Computers (they were hooked up to black & white TVs). They had the Color Computer and the Color Computer 3. Was there ever a Color Computer 2?

 

Awesome! Thanks so much for that link!

Seeing the catalogs from 77-83 took me right back to being a kid. Amazing.

dan c

 

HAHA! I can't see the catalogs since it's that "flash" thing but I'm sure the receiver had an 80 in it somewhere... 25 watts per channel, vertical slider volume control, and the dial indicator changed from yellow to red to indicate a stereo FM station. I blew it when I tried to "soup it up" with bigger output transistors...

 

Better than nothing, but having it in PDF format would be way easier to use.

 

Ok, I'm 'thumbing' through the '79 book (probably the one I spent the most time looking at as a kid, it's burned in my memory) and am really shocked at the prices.

This stuff wasn't cheap. The decent 'affordable' kits were pushing $500 and well beyond...in 1979 dollars mind you. These days you can get a killer audiophile bookshelf speaker system for under $300, and a nice starter turntable for the same. And the new stuff's performance is beyond any 1979 audiophile's dreams.

Fun stuff, but I would never want to go back to crappy BSR turntables.

dan c

 

I used to buy those little "solder-it-yourself" kits that Radio shack would sell that let you build your own calculator or 4-bit computer and that kind of thing. Sometimes they even worked!

 

Ok, just for giggles I used this inflation calcuator... http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

...and plugged in $310, the price of 'good system' on page 12 of the 1979 catalog.

What would "Luxury Hi-Fi at a price that's easy to afford!" cost in 2007 (where the inflation calculator cuts off)?

$874.64

And that's for a plastic changer and speakers that look no better than the PA speakers we had in school.

That reciever alone was listed at $199, which would be $561.46 now.

dan c

 

I built a radio kit from RS and had two wires left over...when I connected them I shorted out the outlet and was thrown across the room. Had to get some paint to clean up the scorch mark before my Dad got home from work. I think the wires were for an extra power outlet but I had mislaid the instructions by the time I connected the spare wires.

Another time I set my bed/mattress on fire waiting for them to play the Beatles I Want To Hold Your Hand for the first time in my area on our local station. I had an AM tube-type radio under the blankets (no headphones) and the heat build up set the bed on fire and melted the radio.

My first decent receiver in 1972 was purchased from Lafayette along with some Dynaco speakers and a Teac cassette deck and a Garrard turntable.

 

TRS-80 Color Computer 2.

 

Thanks! Looks just like the Color Computer 3 (from what I remember).

 

I almost burnt down my bedroom once as well. I had an Admiral 5 tube radio at the time and had run an external antenna wire out my window and across my roof. One time it fell down and landed on top of a half plugged in AC cord. Fortunately I was there at the time. The whole wire got red hot before I heard a pop. That was the wire breaking by the point of contact.

The only lingering damage was with the carpet. I had to pull hard to get the wire out of the carpet and it left a black line the whole length. My parents never did discover this as I covered it up. I slapped a poster on the wall where the wire went up to the window to cover up those marks as well.

What's funny is that I had about a dozen speakers hooked up to this radio with toggle switches in my bedside cabinet to control them all. I had collected all these speakers from trashed radios and junk yards. I had them located all over the place. My dad called that a rats nest and told me I would start a fire some day. Well that rats nest had nothing to do with it.

Btw, this was back in 1965.