RadioShack Nostalgia: A Look Back At Its Glory Days From the 1980s and '90s

Carry around a cell phone box for only $799!

By
SUSANNA KIM
January 15, 2015, 1:16 PM ET
6 min read

— -- Struggling to bring customers into its stores over the last few years, RadioShack is reportedly preparing to file for bankruptcy protection.

However, during much of the 1980s and '90s, RadioShack was one of the country's go-to electronics retailer with the tagline, "The Technology Store."

That's when the company touted 3-watt "Car/Carry Transportable Cellular Phones" with basketball-size portable adapters you can carry from your car.

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"Memory dialing stores up to 98 numbers of up to 32 digits each for fast 2-digit dialing," a catalog description states. And they were only $799, commercials around the late '80s and early '90s touted.

Fast forward to this decade. The company has posted losses for the last 11 quarters. Meanwhile, its shares have plummeted about 30 percent today and are trading around 29 cents.

The 94-year old RadioShack is reportedly preparing to file for bankruptcy as early as February, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The company started off with mixed roots in Boston and Fort Worth, Texas. Then in 1963, Tandy Corporation acquired RadioShack, "marking the company's start as a personal electronics retailer," RadioShack's website states.

In 2000, Tandy Corporation changed its name to RadioShack Corp. and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol RSH.

As a personal electronics store, the company tried to stay on top of the trends.

One RadioShack commercial touted about 25 years ago: "Finding a phone in a car isn't that unusual anymore, except when it leaves the car for greener pastures, the high seas or a leisurely lunch."

RadioShack employs around 27,000 associates in more than 4,400 company-operated stores across the U.S. and Mexico, according to the company late last year.

Based in Fort Worth, Texas, the electronics retailer may be in talks with a private equity firm to sell its assets out of bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.

A spokesperson for Radio Shack told ABC News in a statement, "We decline to comment except to say that RadioShack has not confirmed any of the information that is being reported."