"Then in the back, nestled in a corner are the Arduinos, Maker Kits and littleBits DIY items of fun. They’re next to the wires, transistors and soldering guns. The items that could have made RadioShack the darling of the Maker movement are shoved in the back and ignored. A layer of dust settles on the boxes."
I wish!!! Those gadgets and components from the 1980's were rock solid. There are a few items still there, like the mini-amp, but not like the old days. If they had continued stocking those 80's products, they'd probably still be alive today.
...since I knew it was coming for years, but it still will be hard. The first computer I ever programmed was a TRS-80. I used to book programming time at the local library on their Model III. I worked there in the summers in college after the store manager overheard me giving advice to a fellow customer and offered me a job on the spot. When the manager wasn't looking, I'd read the ham radio and electronic books by Forrest Mims and write down important scanner frequencies from their police scanner books.. The original handwritten "Getting Started with Electronics" sits proudly on my shelf, and I have an electronics project kit I still haven't finished. I still use some of their best items, like their stereo speakers, a duophone speakerphone that is still the best item they ever made, the mini amplifier which may be the second best, CB radio and scanner antennas, and countless parts, adapters, soldering irons, solder, etc. I even still use their 1980's era pocket computer! People say that digikey is good enough for the pieces parts, but that web site is extremely difficult to use and confusing. I feel like I'm losing an old friend. I will miss Radio Shack very much, especially at Christmas time where I'd buy their electronic and RC toys and kits as gifts. You can't find that stuff anywhere else.... not the same stuff at least.
It's not surprising, of course. It's more of a surprise that Radio Shack lasted this long, because they always ignored their core customer... us. Maybe not ignored, but treated us like second class citizens, even though we were keeping them afloat with their 400% market up pieces parts (and yes, I could see on the computer when I worked there what the actual cost was on each part, and the markup was as bad as everyone suspects). They admitted to that the pieces parts kept them in business, but you could tell that they only accepted that reality very grudgingly. If they could have become Best Buy, they would have in a heartbeat. They kept trying, and now that even Best Buy is hurting, too, their little sister Radio Shack had no chance of trudging along anymore.
Radio Shack brought the first microcomputer (PC's for you young'ns) to nationwide retail, beating out Apple and Commodore by a few months.. and now they are gone.:-(
I think he means the "free" red batteries that you'd get with the battery club card. Those were perfect for smoke detectors, though, since at the time alkaline batteries would mess with the detector's low battery signal (at least that's what I was told by a Radio Shack manager).
That's the weird thing about it. I've never seen a company that has so little mindshare make so much money. It would be like Blackberry making 10's of billions of profit every year, even though everyone's practically forgotten who they are. I know that for Microsoft it's all about legacy installations in business and not the consumer, bur still, considering how they were always part of the conversation not too long ago, it's amazing how far they've fallen and yet still make so much money.
"In 1986, the new BASICODE 3 standard was developed. The most important additions were routines for simple monochrome graphics, reading and writing data from within programs and sound output. BASICODE 3 made BASICODE popular in the computer scene of the GDR, and from 1989 onward BASICODE programs were transmitted via radio throughout the GDR. Also, a book was published which included a vinyl record with Bascoders for all computers common in the GDR. The last revision of BASICODE, which featured color graphics, was released as BASICODE 3C in 1991."
In the UK during the early 1980's, pop star Chris Sievey released a 7" single record where side B was the program code in audio format for the Sinclair ZX81 microcomputer. You plugged in your turntable's output into the ZX-81 "loaded" the record into memory, flipped over the record, played the music on Side A while running the program which gave you a "music video" while the song played. It was very innovative at the time:
I never understood the appeal of these keyboards. The clunkity-clunk was extremely hard on my wrists, and I developed carpal tunnel syndrome using them. Once I switched to a softer modern keyboard, my wrist problems disappeared. I found the Model M experience to be literally painful. No thanks.
The best programmers and other IT professionals that I've ever worked with had liberal arts backgrounds. In fact, a programmer named Paul Laughton who wrote the original Apple II DOS and the current RFO Basic app for Android has publicly stated that in his decades of experience, the best programmers he's worked with have almost always been musicians. Music notation is definitely a code, and the structure of music performance is very much like code writing--quite logical with leaps of creativity when necessary. In general, the ability of liberal arts grads to research, find creative solutions to problems, and communicate them to others is an exceptionally valuable skill in any profession. With modern applications being so graphically intensive, any artistic and graphic design skills are a value added complement to coding skills. The skill learned from studying the liberal arts allow IT professionals give a significant leg up on their peers who do not have that kind of experience. Of course, the liberal arts skill set is only a compliment, not a replacement, to traditional coding and other STEM skills. IT professionals who have both skills enjoy a significant competitive advantage. The study of liberal arts should be strongly encouraged for all STEM students as a stepping stone to future success.
My reference to Exchange/Office was meant to include other "back office" products as well, since once a business is a "Microsoft shop", they tend to use Microsoft products for most of their other needs as well. While this is a highly profitable arrangement for Microsoft, it makes them even more vulnerable to a competitor coming in and offering an cheaper better solution by breaking up the "microsoft shop" mini-monopolies at businesses. Microsoft doesn't tend to fare well with open competition once their barriers to access have been broken. Blackberry was very successful and made a lot of money, too, but were also extremely vulnerable and collapsed with frightening speed. I would be somewhat nervous if I was a Microsoft shareholder... only somewhat nervous since they have a lot of cash to burn before they crash, but their future looks kind of shaky at the moment.
Ballmer defenders like to point out the stock value and revenue numbers, which is valid, however Ballmer's reign ended Microsoft's dominance in mindshare and allowed their monopoly to essentially break up. Their revenue gains were made at a great cost to the company's prestige and future dominance and are likely to be short lived. There is only one product now that is making money and that is Office/Exchange and their cloud version of that. The desktop Windows market is shrinking rapidly, Surface is a financial failure, Windows Phone is a laughingstock, Silverlight a joke, and Xbox One is circling the drain. Where is the future? No one cares what Microsoft wants to do in the marketplace. They are ignored. Ballmer made them a one trick pony--a revenue generating one trick pony, but one that is extremely vulnerable to being completely toppled by a better, more respected competitor.
Win NT had a hardware abstraction layer that supposedly made everything portable... I think you still had to compile applications to whatever native architecture it was running on though. Maybe they will go back to promoting.NET which ran bytecode? Who knows with Microsoft.
Here's a real life car analogy... GM in the 80's "unified" all their drivetrains. The same engines/transmissions were available in the Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, etc. The only differences were in the style, body, and nameplate. It didn't particularly go over well with auto enthusiasts or consumers in general. The GM brands became rather superfluous, and consumers were quite lukewarm to the generic "all-in-one" options for GM cars. GM cars from the 80's are considered to be the worst built and least desirable of the company's history. You don't see any of those models still driving around with classic plates on them. Few consumers wanted them then, even fewer want to preserve them now.
That would make little sense. You acknowledge in your post that the product line is dying. Milking everything you can out of it makes sense, but if you don't replace it with something else, you'll end up like every other IT company that decided to just sit on their cash cow until it was too late. Novell Netware, Banyan Vines, RIM/Blackberry, SCO, all companies that cashed in mightily on one trick wonders, only to crash and burn incredibly quickly when their product was surpassed by someone else. One of the reasons why Microsoft was so successful in the 1990's was that Bill Gates refused to let anyone get ahead of his company. Your recommendation is one of certain corporate death.
I can now finally get a Google+ account and do ratings on Android apps...
Too bad it's a few years too late... Had google offered this when they launched Google+ they might have actually become a decent competitor to facebook. Now it's too late.
Microsoft already reinvented itself once--in the 1990's, and only because a few passionate employees convinced Bill Gates that the Internet was worth something. Gates, being ever paranoid, decided to flip the company on its head and turn it into an Internet company in record time. Gates isn't there anymore. While Gates used to wake up in the middle of the night terrified that someone might steal his business. Ballmer managed to sleep through the decade and let everyone else eat Microsoft's lunch. Can Nadella recreate Bill Gates and redirect the company? We'll see... He doesn't have the advantages Microsoft did in the 1990s. He has a tough job ahead.
Microsoft could become a business only company... that would put a dent in their "Surface" vision, of course. But, they have nothing to lose with Xbox keeping them relevant in the consumer space. Why throw it out? It would be such a waste!
A lot. What better way to sell advertising than to totally integrate with the TV experience and sell some stuff, too. The Xbox's capabilities would dovetail nicely with Google's vision, and they'd make it a lot cheaper, too. Imagine advertising supported games, so you don't have to shell out $60 every time? Google owning Xbox would be a dream come true for them.
They got the word Microsoft into millions of home and unlike with their home PC, made it into a positive experience. Any money that might have been lost was made up for by the marketing gains. When people think XBox, they think Microsoft and successful product--two words that don't usually go together. That's worth any price Microsoft may have paid for the experience. Considering how much Xbox charges you for everything and everything, it certainly takes an extraordinary level of incompetence to lose money on something like that.
Slashdot Mirror
"Then in the back, nestled in a corner are the Arduinos, Maker Kits and littleBits DIY items of fun. They’re next to the wires, transistors and soldering guns.
The items that could have made RadioShack the darling of the Maker movement are shoved in the back and ignored. A layer of dust settles on the boxes."
http://thenextweb.com/opinion/...
I wish!!! Those gadgets and components from the 1980's were rock solid. There are a few items still there, like the mini-amp, but not like the old days. If they had continued stocking those 80's products, they'd probably still be alive today.
...since I knew it was coming for years, but it still will be hard. The first computer I ever programmed was a TRS-80. I used to book programming time at the local library on their Model III. I worked there in the summers in college after the store manager overheard me giving advice to a fellow customer and offered me a job on the spot. When the manager wasn't looking, I'd read the ham radio and electronic books by Forrest Mims and write down important scanner frequencies from their police scanner books.. The original handwritten "Getting Started with Electronics" sits proudly on my shelf, and I have an electronics project kit I still haven't finished. I still use some of their best items, like their stereo speakers, a duophone speakerphone that is still the best item they ever made, the mini amplifier which may be the second best, CB radio and scanner antennas, and countless parts, adapters, soldering irons, solder, etc. I even still use their 1980's era pocket computer! People say that digikey is good enough for the pieces parts, but that web site is extremely difficult to use and confusing. I feel like I'm losing an old friend. I will miss Radio Shack very much, especially at Christmas time where I'd buy their electronic and RC toys and kits as gifts. You can't find that stuff anywhere else.... not the same stuff at least.
It's not surprising, of course. It's more of a surprise that Radio Shack lasted this long, because they always ignored their core customer... us. Maybe not ignored, but treated us like second class citizens, even though we were keeping them afloat with their 400% market up pieces parts (and yes, I could see on the computer when I worked there what the actual cost was on each part, and the markup was as bad as everyone suspects). They admitted to that the pieces parts kept them in business, but you could tell that they only accepted that reality very grudgingly. If they could have become Best Buy, they would have in a heartbeat. They kept trying, and now that even Best Buy is hurting, too, their little sister Radio Shack had no chance of trudging along anymore.
Radio Shack brought the first microcomputer (PC's for you young'ns) to nationwide retail, beating out Apple and Commodore by a few months.. and now they are gone. :-(
I think he means the "free" red batteries that you'd get with the battery club card. Those were perfect for smoke detectors, though, since at the time alkaline batteries would mess with the detector's low battery signal (at least that's what I was told by a Radio Shack manager).
Except that April Fool's is two months from now...
That's the weird thing about it. I've never seen a company that has so little mindshare make so much money. It would be like Blackberry making 10's of billions of profit every year, even though everyone's practically forgotten who they are. I know that for Microsoft it's all about legacy installations in business and not the consumer, bur still, considering how they were always part of the conversation not too long ago, it's amazing how far they've fallen and yet still make so much money.
Yes, actually...
"In 1986, the new BASICODE 3 standard was developed. The most important additions were routines for simple monochrome graphics, reading and writing data from within programs and sound output. BASICODE 3 made BASICODE popular in the computer scene of the GDR, and from 1989 onward BASICODE programs were transmitted via radio throughout the GDR. Also, a book was published which included a vinyl record with Bascoders for all computers common in the GDR. The last revision of BASICODE, which featured color graphics, was released as BASICODE 3C in 1991."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
In the UK during the early 1980's, pop star Chris Sievey released a 7" single record where side B was the program code in audio format for the Sinclair ZX81 microcomputer. You plugged in your turntable's output into the ZX-81 "loaded" the record into memory, flipped over the record, played the music on Side A while running the program which gave you a "music video" while the song played. It was very innovative at the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Verizon has their own independent app store on their phones, too. Does anyone use it? Not really...
Java has very little in common with COBOL, except features that all languages have in common.
Java is almost as unnecessarily wordy as COBOL. Almost...
I never understood the appeal of these keyboards. The clunkity-clunk was extremely hard on my wrists, and I developed carpal tunnel syndrome using them. Once I switched to a softer modern keyboard, my wrist problems disappeared. I found the Model M experience to be literally painful. No thanks.
What, 40 channels of citizens band wasn't good enough for you? ;-)
The best programmers and other IT professionals that I've ever worked with had liberal arts backgrounds. In fact, a programmer named Paul Laughton who wrote the original Apple II DOS and the current RFO Basic app for Android has publicly stated that in his decades of experience, the best programmers he's worked with have almost always been musicians. Music notation is definitely a code, and the structure of music performance is very much like code writing--quite logical with leaps of creativity when necessary. In general, the ability of liberal arts grads to research, find creative solutions to problems, and communicate them to others is an exceptionally valuable skill in any profession. With modern applications being so graphically intensive, any artistic and graphic design skills are a value added complement to coding skills. The skill learned from studying the liberal arts allow IT professionals give a significant leg up on their peers who do not have that kind of experience. Of course, the liberal arts skill set is only a compliment, not a replacement, to traditional coding and other STEM skills. IT professionals who have both skills enjoy a significant competitive advantage. The study of liberal arts should be strongly encouraged for all STEM students as a stepping stone to future success.
My reference to Exchange/Office was meant to include other "back office" products as well, since once a business is a "Microsoft shop", they tend to use Microsoft products for most of their other needs as well. While this is a highly profitable arrangement for Microsoft, it makes them even more vulnerable to a competitor coming in and offering an cheaper better solution by breaking up the "microsoft shop" mini-monopolies at businesses. Microsoft doesn't tend to fare well with open competition once their barriers to access have been broken. Blackberry was very successful and made a lot of money, too, but were also extremely vulnerable and collapsed with frightening speed. I would be somewhat nervous if I was a Microsoft shareholder... only somewhat nervous since they have a lot of cash to burn before they crash, but their future looks kind of shaky at the moment.
Ballmer defenders like to point out the stock value and revenue numbers, which is valid, however Ballmer's reign ended Microsoft's dominance in mindshare and allowed their monopoly to essentially break up. Their revenue gains were made at a great cost to the company's prestige and future dominance and are likely to be short lived. There is only one product now that is making money and that is Office/Exchange and their cloud version of that. The desktop Windows market is shrinking rapidly, Surface is a financial failure, Windows Phone is a laughingstock, Silverlight a joke, and Xbox One is circling the drain. Where is the future? No one cares what Microsoft wants to do in the marketplace. They are ignored. Ballmer made them a one trick pony--a revenue generating one trick pony, but one that is extremely vulnerable to being completely toppled by a better, more respected competitor.
There is a required lab course in the afternoon.
I like mine a lot. It's basically become my primary laptop. Anything that I need beyond Chrome, I can do in Linux via Crouton.
Win NT had a hardware abstraction layer that supposedly made everything portable... I think you still had to compile applications to whatever native architecture it was running on though. Maybe they will go back to promoting .NET which ran bytecode? Who knows with Microsoft.
Here's a real life car analogy... GM in the 80's "unified" all their drivetrains. The same engines/transmissions were available in the Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, etc. The only differences were in the style, body, and nameplate. It didn't particularly go over well with auto enthusiasts or consumers in general. The GM brands became rather superfluous, and consumers were quite lukewarm to the generic "all-in-one" options for GM cars. GM cars from the 80's are considered to be the worst built and least desirable of the company's history. You don't see any of those models still driving around with classic plates on them. Few consumers wanted them then, even fewer want to preserve them now.
That would make little sense. You acknowledge in your post that the product line is dying. Milking everything you can out of it makes sense, but if you don't replace it with something else, you'll end up like every other IT company that decided to just sit on their cash cow until it was too late. Novell Netware, Banyan Vines, RIM/Blackberry, SCO, all companies that cashed in mightily on one trick wonders, only to crash and burn incredibly quickly when their product was surpassed by someone else. One of the reasons why Microsoft was so successful in the 1990's was that Bill Gates refused to let anyone get ahead of his company. Your recommendation is one of certain corporate death.
I can now finally get a Google+ account and do ratings on Android apps...
Too bad it's a few years too late... Had google offered this when they launched Google+ they might have actually become a decent competitor to facebook. Now it's too late.
And Google Play comments, too...
Microsoft already reinvented itself once--in the 1990's, and only because a few passionate employees convinced Bill Gates that the Internet was worth something. Gates, being ever paranoid, decided to flip the company on its head and turn it into an Internet company in record time. Gates isn't there anymore. While Gates used to wake up in the middle of the night terrified that someone might steal his business. Ballmer managed to sleep through the decade and let everyone else eat Microsoft's lunch. Can Nadella recreate Bill Gates and redirect the company? We'll see... He doesn't have the advantages Microsoft did in the 1990s. He has a tough job ahead.
Microsoft could become a business only company... that would put a dent in their "Surface" vision, of course. But, they have nothing to lose with Xbox keeping them relevant in the consumer space. Why throw it out? It would be such a waste!
A lot. What better way to sell advertising than to totally integrate with the TV experience and sell some stuff, too. The Xbox's capabilities would dovetail nicely with Google's vision, and they'd make it a lot cheaper, too. Imagine advertising supported games, so you don't have to shell out $60 every time? Google owning Xbox would be a dream come true for them.
They got the word Microsoft into millions of home and unlike with their home PC, made it into a positive experience. Any money that might have been lost was made up for by the marketing gains. When people think XBox, they think Microsoft and successful product--two words that don't usually go together. That's worth any price Microsoft may have paid for the experience. Considering how much Xbox charges you for everything and everything, it certainly takes an extraordinary level of incompetence to lose money on something like that.