My father and I purchased all our consumer electronics at Radio Shack back in the day. I had a full line of gadgets: microcassette recorders, RC vehicles, a 2"

My father and I purchased all our consumer electronics at Radio Shack back in the day. I had a full line of gadgets: microcassette recorders, RC vehicles, a 2" battery handheld LCD TV, cables, batteries, you name it. The clerk at the mall, Jon, was like my best friend; we had long meandering conversations. Hopefully they were mostly about electronics, I guess. Of course he knew how to sell me the good stuff! However, my family never owned a single Tandy system. First we picked up an Atari VCS, and it stayed at Grandma's, because Mom was afraid we'd mess up the color TV. For reasons I cannot recall, we became a Commodore family with the purchase of a VIC-20 for my exclusive use, hooked up to the very living-room TV that was precious to Mom and Dad. I hardly had any contact with Tandy computers, other than the one on display at Radio Shack. School computers were TI-99/4a, then there were C64s at high school; the family friend owned an Apple ][e, my girlfriend in the mid-90s was an Amiga girl, and I just never had occasion to lay hands on a Tandy. Oh well!