Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. โค๏ธ

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

๐Ÿ”  ๐Ÿ’€  ๐Ÿ“ธ  ๐Ÿ˜ญ  ๐Ÿ•ณ๏ธ  ๐Ÿค   ๐ŸŽฌ  ๐Ÿฅ”

Radio Shack Catalog Archive (1939-2011)

cover of the 1961 Radio Shack catalog

interior of a Radio Shack catalog from the early 80s showing a listing of computer games

1987 Radio Shack catalog

1941 Radio Shack catalog

Look, I’m not even going to explain this. Either 1) you’re the type of person who reads the words “Radio Shack Catalog Archive (1939-2011)”, completely flips their shit, clicks away immediately, and therefore isn’t even reading this, or 2) you don’t care. Have a good one!

Comments  4

Sort by: thread โ€” thread . latest . faves

Jeff Daigle

Yes! My grandfather built several amplifiers/tuners from Radio Shack kits in the early 1960s. I even had one of the ones he built in my first post-college apartment in 2001 where sadly the power supply blew up and fried most of the transistors. Let me see if I can find the exact model...

Evan J

Oh, man, yes. I remember my mom buying me and my brother Radio Shack Crystal Radio Kits when we were kids. We put those suckers together and then carefully and painstakingly trying to pick up local radio broadcasts. It was like the CrunchLabs or KiwiCo of the 80s.

Matthew

The Armatron!

Laura R

The holy trinity of Gen X childhood mail excitement: New Yorker cartoons, Edmund Scientific and the Radio Shack catalog.

Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.

Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.

Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!