Radio Shack is slipping off the raft; it’s taking its final breaths. To eulogize, here are 25 pages from the 1985 Radio Shack catalog with all kinds of electronic, geeky goodies: Beta VCRs, open-reel and 8-track tape, computers and peripherals, and vacuum tubes. All branded Radio Shack, Realistic, Tandy or Archer, and all guaranteed to make you happy for a little while.
The tradition continues for 1985 with more breakthroughs than we’ve ever introduced in a single year. New home/office multi-line phone system. New Pocket Vision TV. New compact disc player. New stereo hi-fi VCR. Incredible new Tandy 2000 MS-DOS personal computer. Over 200 new products in all, and every one of them exclusive at Radio Shack. Click to embiggen.Only $500 gets you a digitally-synthesized radio, cassette player and equalizer, in a super-sexy, 17-pound enclosure. Click to embiggen.Click to embiggen.A CD player with pushbuttons for fast-forward and fast-reverse, stop/clear and pause, all indicated by a green fluorescent display. Click to embiggen.Don’t be a loser – select a Betamax hi-fi VCR which outperforms open-reel and cassette! Click to embiggen.You didn’t decide to go Beta? This baby is has built-in moisture protection with automatic dryer! Click to embiggen.Here’s a great way to share music with others. 10 “D” batteries are not included. Click to embiggen.Can’t see your tape heads when cleaning them at night? Consider an illuminated head demagnetizer! Click to embiggen.You select: open reel or 8-track tape – up to 3600 feet of hi-fi happiness! Click to embiggen.Each tape comes with a precision five-screw housing and hinged storage box. Click to embiggen.Any of these Realistic car radios would sound great in the dash of your Buick LaSabre listening to Wham! perform “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” Click to embiggen.A 32 number memory dialer puts rotary (or tone) power in your hands, and for only $60. Click to embiggen.Two tapes! One for your announcement and one for your incoming messages. Add the remote control for state-of-the-art worldwide connectivity! Click to embiggen.Feel important like a bigshot doctor or lawyer with this pocket pager. Click to embiggen.Breaker … breaker … watch Smokey and the Bandit, then buy a CB, 10-4 good buddy. Click to embiggen.So which is it? A TV or a monitor? And what the heck are “N” batteries? Click to embiggen.Before solid state electronics, there was no such thing as a space heater – instead, you just clicked on your TV or radio set. Click to embiggen.Got Ohn’s Law problems? Radio Shack can help! Click to embiggen.Archer antennas were designed by a joint venture between NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratories for the best picture reception ever! Click to embiggen.These DIY kits are pretty much the same educational experience as a Computer Science degree at UC Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO or UC Santa Barbara. Click to embiggen.A Radio Shack $350 drive to read (not write) a 5¼” floppy disk, holding a massive 156k of data. Disk #1, 2 or 3 requires Disk #0. Click to embiggen.Why To Buy: Connect to CompuServe via this 300/1200 baud high-speed modem to send and receive, what the kids call, “electronic mail.” Click to embiggen.This portable lightweight dot matrix printer works great with your MS-DOS IBM-compatible computer to print 8-bit graphics. Click to embiggen.For $2750, get a great MS-DOS computer with two 5¼” floppy drives, or upgrade to a 10MB hard drive for only $1500 more. Expand with more memory (up to 768k), stunning high-resolution (640×400) monochrome or color graphics. Be decadent – the choice is yours! Click to embiggen.Indulge yourself with a 15MB hard drive for only $2495 – think: “unlimited storage for a lifetime!” In 2015 dollars, that comes out to $5,419.14. Click to embiggen.
