Tower Records and/or Borders Books & Music.
Toys R Us. No contest.
RadioShack, with the drawers of capacitors and resistors.
Old Radio Shack, not that thing from 2015 that was functionally a brick and mortar cellphone stand.
Fry’s electronics
Fry’s had been a living corpse for a decade. You’d have to go as far back as Circuit City to actually get the Fry’s you remember.
Even the zombie version of Fry’s was better than most of the alternatives (*cough* Best Buy *cough*).
Radio Shack. And not the recent version. The OLD version with breadboards and soldering irons and electronics kits.
I remember being in high school and going in there to buy resistors and shit.
We were in there once or twice a month getting solder and random assortment of components for little home projects we had going. The workers also knew how to help and always had suggestions for the projects we were doing. I remember the day we (grandpa and I) went into the store and realized it wasn’t the same anymore. Only a small selection of components and the whole front was full of RC cars and random expensive electronic gadgets nobody asked for. We only went back once or twice, but it became evident that we can’t find what we were looking for there anymore. We started sourcing our parts from overseas vendors for fractions of a cent per unit, but we had to buy in bulk. We stopped doing those small projects because it was taking too long to get components and the cost was out of hand with thousands of unused components in boxes in the project room taking up space. Well, made myself sad for the morning.
That would be my pick as well. I still have a few of the free CueCats they gave away. After some easy modding, I use one to scan the barcodes of my books to add to a database on my comp. I miss old RS so much.
We still have Toys R Us and Party City here, and they seem to be doing fine. Blockbuster isn’t really needed anymore. Old school Radio Shack would be pretty cool though.
Greater Vancouver area has gone from like 6 toys r us to 1, don’t think they’re doing too fine
Right, I forgot the Orleans one closed this winter. Ot actually seemed to be well stocked, too. 3 to go in the area, I guess.
What is a Friendly’s?
Friendly’s still exists, it’s just regional now though.
I was like, “Friendly’s is dead?” for a terrifying second before I read this 🥹
Actually I was like 5 the last time I ate there so it’s really not that special to me but happy they’re not dead yet. Started my love for gummy bears in ice cream.
They’re still about as good as you remember. I.e. my five year old thinks it’s the best thing ever.
An obligatory “Fuck Blockbuster:” They sucked compared to the local rental shops.
Radio Shack
No one else has electronic components
Probably none of them, I prefer MOM-and-pop shops
Not a lot of mom-and-pop electronic components shops near me (zero total) so RadioShack.
Freddy fazbear’s pizza
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None of these ever existed in my country, except for Toys “R” Us, which still exists.
Sure? Thought they are now called Smyth’s or something.
Not here; They’re still called Toys “R” Us.
And from looking at the Wikipedia for Smyths it seems that they bought the Toys “R” Us stores in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Not really the same thing as here (Portugal, btw), I think, since they kept the branding, but IDK, I’m not an IP lawyer…
Circuit City. I grew up on CompUSA but CC had better prices, if I remember right from my childhood. Then CU died, then CC died, then FE died, now all we have is shitty BB.
My CC I got to go ‘in the back’ to watch then replace a psu that died and I correctly diagnosed, back in like… 03? Two techs for the store, super chill, talked me through the process. I’ve been building and repairing my own systems ever since. They told me to let them know when I was 16, they’d put in a good word for me after we chatted for about an hour. By the time I could legally work, the writing was on the wall, and CC died before I turned 17.
I wonder where those guys are at now. I thought I knew what I was doing, but they were so kind in explaining everything, answering every question, giving me confirmation about all sorts of stuff. I really hope they are doing well. They couldn’t have been mid-20s at the time.
I loved Radio Shack for the same reasons. I learned so much from the guys that worked there. I might buy something that only cost $5 but they would spend 30 minutes with me explaining how to fix issues that I had.
