Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2025 Poal.co

520

I love LEDs. They're endlessly useful and fun.

Rat Shack used to have an assortment of 20 pieces. These were overruns, seconds, floor sweepings, etc. They all worked, but may not have been prime. You'd get the same assortment for a while, then it would change and you'd get a new assortment. Everything from odd shapes to T-1s and superbrights. $1.99 was cheap fun.

Before the chain when under for the first, second, third? I can't remember...they changed the way those were packed. You still got 20, but they were all Chinese primes and you'd get maybe 5 pieces of 4 kinds in the pack. None of those weird ones like the orange stubbies or those yellow-lens greens.

There doesn't seem to be that kind of crap out there anymore. I see assortments online, but they're usually 500 pieces of 3 kinds, some project that failed in the 90s and is being cleaned out of the warehouse.

Ah well.

I love LEDs. They're endlessly useful and fun. Rat Shack used to have an assortment of 20 pieces. These were overruns, seconds, floor sweepings, etc. They all worked, but may not have been prime. You'd get the same assortment for a while, then it would change and you'd get a new assortment. Everything from odd shapes to T-1s and superbrights. $1.99 was cheap fun. Before the chain when under for the first, second, third? I can't remember...they changed the way those were packed. You still got 20, but they were all Chinese primes and you'd get maybe 5 pieces of 4 kinds in the pack. None of those weird ones like the orange stubbies or those yellow-lens greens. There doesn't seem to be that kind of crap out there anymore. I see assortments online, but they're usually 500 pieces of 3 kinds, some project that failed in the 90s and is being cleaned out of the warehouse. Ah well.

(post is archived)

[–] • 6 pts

I miss the early Radio Shack - the days before they harassed you for a phone number and the guys working there were geeks.

For fun odds n ends I like https://sciplus.com but yeah it's all Chinese crap and true assortments are pretty much gone.

[–] • 1 pt

Wow, didn't know that place was still around. Remember when they were Jerryco?

[–] • 2 pts

Yep! I have so many weird things in my misc box from them including some weird LED strips that I think we're supposed to go across an old Gameboy to provide light. I haven't ordered anything in years but I just might if I get bored at work today.

[–] • 0 pt

Wish I'd kept my old paper catalogs but that was waaaaay long ago.

[–] • 2 pts

Someone close to me moved up over a 10 year run with The Shack and saw it to the end. He was with them right when they started being mostly about selling phones to when they thought they could be “hip” and they were rolling out copycat Apple stores.

They offered him the opportunity to open one of these new stores in California. He uprooted and went for it. Grand opening. Grand closing. Then all the regular stores started shutting down. Poor guy was depressed. He was moving up and up and then it just ended.

[–] • 3 pts

Even Radio Shack couldn't figure out why Radio Shack was in still in Business.

[–] • 1 pt

I hate to admit this, but I discovered a Radio Shack near me a few weeks back. It was a damn time capsule. The dude working there looked both pleased and annoyed that I came in.

[–] • 2 pts

There's still one left? Dayum.

[–] • 1 pt

It reminds me of one of those things that fags make stupid documentaries about “the last blockbuster video store,” but in this case, it’s actually something kind of cool and used by people who do or make something, rather than just mindless consumers getting their latest fix of pedowood trash.

[–] • 1 pt

We had a radioshack in town, the signs are still up but it's a gun store now.

[–] • 2 pts

Those stores were everywhere at one time.

There was one left in Central Ohio, at a Hobbyland somewhere on the East side of Columbus. Went there once, but that is no longer a thing.