Hottest RadioShack tech gifts of 1984 holiday season laughable now

See the hot new technology that everyone was clamoring for at Christmas '84. See the hot new technology that everyone was clamoring for at Christmas '84. Photo: RadioShack Photo: RadioShack Image 1 of / 102 Caption Close Hottest RadioShack tech gifts of 1984 holiday season laughable now 1 / 102 Back to Gallery

A RadioShack fansite has scanned in almost every catalog that the electronics store has put out for the past 75 years.

Mike D’Alessio has run RadioShackcatalogs.com since 2008 and he has fond memories of poring over the store’s catalogs when they came to his house as a teenager.

“I still enjoy paging through my collection of old Radio Shack catalogs and wanted to share this experience with others,” he says. For him RadioShack is more than a store, it also stimulated his interest in electronics and inventing his own gadgets.

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“I don't think Radio Shack Corporation ever realized the power of their catalog,” he says.

His website has catalogs, old circular ads, commercials, and pretty anything else you could conceivably want from a website about RadioShack. Do you remember the Radio Shack Free Battery of the Month Club? Well D’Alessio does.

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The electronics store has been around since 1921 but didn’t start putting out a catalog until 1939. The last catalog in D’Alessio’s collection is from 2003.

As for the 1939 catalog, you might as well be looking at tools made of animal bone and cow hides compared to what we have these days. What the heck is a relay rack?

Funny enough you can do almost anything some of these items tout on your smartphone, except of course play a vinyl LP. There is not an app for that ... yet.

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