Let's bring this 1978 Bally Strikes And Spares Pinball Back To Life With A Brand New MPU Board! 

Thank you for watching, Roland!

Radio Shack hated it's core customer base. I worked for Radio shack and they didn't want to sell scanners or two-way radios or the force-feed which was all of the little resistors and capacitors and connectors They wanted to be like Best Buy and sell TVs and satellite systems and commercial electronics But they sold the same items you could get for half the cost at Walmart Everything they sold was actually somebody else's products The companies like Uniden and GRE and ADI made meme plates and covers that had RadioShack's name but inside they were identical to the company that manufactured them They had different firmware in the later days like the PRO-668 is the same as the PSR 800 and the Whistler ( I can't remember the model ) The actual scanner was made by a factory in China or Taiwan and the only difference was the firmware It was sold at RadioShack and buy Whistler and buy GRE but it was the same exact scanner Oftentimes RadioShack would disable features like they did with the pro 668 The Whistler version had Motorola turbo DMR decoding but the Radio shack model didn't I remember special ordering a dozen Motorola VHF two-way radios and the district manager tore my head off Then he sent people to my store to buy those radios and stole my commission And the computers oh dear God The IBM's the original pentiums we had the 60 MHz and the 90 MHz machines and they cost $1,200 not including the monitor I built the same machine for less than 500 dollars The district manager said he didn't want people with technical knowledge he wanted salesman And he hated me And every month I would meet my quota when people that were salesman he hired specifically because they were salesman with no knowledge of electronics did not meet their quotas He was so happy when he fired me There was no surprise for me when they went under a short time after I left I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did Digikey was where we got a lot of our special order force-feed from the RSU catalog And the internet was just starting back then and I remember when I would order parts and get them in less time than it took to special order through the store that we were doomed and anytime anyone would make a circuit diagram online that used RadioShack parts they would discontinue those parts The 5 to 60 pf variable capacitor was a popular part for making FM transmitters using a 9-volt battery that could reach a mile away with a good matched antenna. As soon as they figured out people were doing that they pulled that Part We had orca this awful security thing that set on the counter that we were selling at the same time we were selling our own full House wired security panel and the ADT professional installation Our district manager invited ATT representatives to our meeting and then up sold the orca like crazy and after he was done speaking I went over all the ways that the system could be defeated and how ADT was far superior and every time our district manager came up with an answer I explained why it wouldn't work to defeat the ADT system and I went over all of the backup systems the cellular link and the UHF two-way radio link. The ADT rep ask me if I worked for them or if I had ever worked for them because I knew intricate knowledge of the system that was proprietary that they didn't share with anyone and that most technicians didn't even know Then they offered me a job The district manager was so angry at that meeting I knew that was going to be the end of my days at RS The other thing we had our c-band satellite dish and primestar which was a disaster and was 6-month backlog for installation and we had DirecTV and dish Network And then people started hacking the DirecTV and dish Network receivers and the district manager pulled all of our stock It was crazy One of the first things I did when I got hired was to run a coax cable and amplifier from the cable from our roof antenna that was feeding the TVs over to our scanners and I programmed one of the scanners and set it up a 2006 and it was constantly talking in the background and so many people would say how is it doing that and they would buy the display model they would actually say I want that specific radio and I would say it's the display and they would say that's the one I want and so I would literally disconnect the antenna and unplug it and literally hand them the radio and I got to where I was programming all of our scanners and putting them back in the boxes And that drove the district manager crazy as well And I did work repairing stuff in the back for people which drove him crazy and I did a lot of repair and programming of radio equipment for people that was not RadioShack equipment and that drove him crazy Oh those were the days

@@ocsrc I guess I didn't have that experience with my store. My experience is from the 1980s mostly. The local shop was owned by this older gentleman that was very soft spoken and seemed to have a rather deep knowledge of all things electronic. I was into the short wave radio scene back in the 80s and was always purchasing parts through him to fix or tweak my kit radio transmitter/receiver that my Grandfather had given me as a gift. It was the only store in town for me. The owner was always helpful and actually gave me good advice on some of the things I was trying to do. I can say he actually saved me some money in some situations. Sorry if your experience was not as pleasant. I do know that Radio Shack did seem to go down hill starting in the late 1980s. The last time I stepped into that store, the electronic parts catalogs were no longer on the service counter. And there didn't seem to be as many components or parts on the walls. I guess I just miss the old days where I seemed to be able to get any part I needed from that store.

@@AllanSitte Originally Radio Shack sold franchises and anyone could buy one and there were many rural towns that had feed stores with a RadioShack or other stores that had a RadioShack and those franchises were allowed to sell anything that they want it and many of them sold electronics that the corporate stores did not. In the 90s this was hated by the corporation and they tried to buy or close every franchised store. Many of the franchise stores sold parts and kits to hack two-way radios and scanners and satellite and all sorts of other things that the corporation really hated. The 10 m Tandy 1000 was made I think by RCI. It could be easily modified to open up the full 11 m BAND and everyone that bought one did just that and RadioShack was fined for selling something that could be modified for use outside of band The ADI dual band radios UHF / VHF that also did 800 band, ADI had no problem selling these but when RadioShack realized that they could receive the 800 band and the cellular band they pulled them immediately and even my store had them removed. I was going to buy both of them each store got two radios to start and I went in to buy them in the morning and I found the district manager had already been in the store overnight and took them. I don't remember the model number. ADI is out of business, I think. RCI is long gone. They sold 50,000 2 channel analog 2 way 1 watt RCI-1000 to Walmart. Mostly Red and Blue Dot. They were cool little radios that worked well. They took a long time to charge and they didn't have a drop-in charger they had a plug-in wall wart that went into the microphone Jack but they were really nice and I actually have eight of them. I replaced the batteries in several of them. They are sitting on the shelf with dozens of other brands new radios I never used. I got sick and bedridden. It is depressing.

Me too

@@AllanSitte I’m right there with ya brother!! I miss the 80’s PERIOD!

Thanks for watching!

Thank you Delusional's Arcade!!!!

Thank you beavis6363! See you on the next one...

Thanks for watching Brendan, yeah I like how they did those pins! The guy that did the art on this sucker is kind of a thing

***monnnnaaa lisssa lost her smilleeeeee********