| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Fate | became Radio Shack Corporation |
| Founded | 1919 |
| Defunct | 2000 |
| Headquarters | Fort Worth, Texas, USA |
| Products | Leather |
| Website | none |
Tandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas. Tandy was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store, and acquired RadioShack in 1963. The Tandy name was dropped in May 2000, when RadioShack Corporation was made the official name.
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Tandy began in 1919 when two friends, Norton Hinckley and Dave L. Tandy, decided to start the Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company, which sold leather shoe parts to shoe repair shops in the Fort Worth area. Tandy's son, Charles D. Tandy, turned it into a leathercraft company when shoe rationing in World War II almost killed the business, and later expanded into selling leather and tools to make such products as wallets. After a struggle over the company, which saw the Hinckley name dropped, Tandy made another change in 1963, when it bought the ailing RadioShack. It later sold off all non-electronic business. The leather business continued, and eventually combined with The Leather Factory in 2000 to become Tandy Leather Factory.[1]
Tandy was one of the companies (along with Commodore International, Atari, and Apple) that started the personal computer revolution in the USA, with their TRS-80 (1977) and TRS-80 Color Computer ("CoCo") (1980) line of home computers. Later Tandy adopted the IBM PC architecture. Tandy's IBM PC compatibles, the Tandy 1000 and Tandy 2000, were cheaper than the IBM PC and yet featured built-in, and better, sound and graphics. These machines could produce 16-color video and operated two dynamic sine/square/sawtooth sound channels: a non-dynamic sound channel and a dynamic white/pink/brown noise channel. It was only when VGA-standard graphics cards and Sound Blaster sound cards became common in the early 1990s that the Tandy's advanced features became noncompetitive and thus obsolete.
Tandy acquired GRiD Systems in March 1988.[2] Grid Systems was a laptop manufacturer whose products included the GRiD Compass (1982), GridCase (1985), GridLite (1987), and GRiDPad (1990) tablet computer.
Tandy also produced short lived Tandy 1100FD and Tandy 1100HD notebooks. Released in 1989, the 1100 Series was based on the popular NEC V20 processor clocked at 8 MHz. Tandy also produced software for its computers running DOS, in the form of Tandy Deskmate.[3] That same year, Tandy introduced the WP-2, a solid state notebook computer that was a rebadged Citizen CBM-10WP. Eventually, in the early 1990s, Tandy Corporation sold its computer manufacturing business to AST Computers,[4] and all Tandy computer lines were terminated. When that occurred, Radio Shack stores began selling computers made by other manufacturers, such as Compaq. In 1992, the company introduced the Tandy Zoomer, a predecessor to the Palm Pilot, designed by Jeff Hawkins. Also that year, the company produced an interactive, multimedia CD-ROM player called the Tandy Video Information System (VIS). Like the Tandy computers, it was based on the IBM PC architecture and used a version of Microsoft Windows. Tandy even produced a line of floppy disks, and continued producing IBM PC compatibles until the end of the Intel 486 era.
From the 1970s Tandy operated a chain of RadioShack-style stores in Britain and Australia through its subsidiary InterTAN, under the Tandy name. In 1986, InterTAN became a separate entity though connections between them were still visible. For example, catalog number compatibility was maintained, so the same catalog number in both companies would refer to the same item.
In 1999 the UK stores were sold to Carphone Warehouse, and over the following years have either been closed, or turned into Carphone Warehouse stores. Some of these stores were sold to a new company called T2 which continued the RadioShack style theme. Lately, many of these stores have closed down, though T2 has a strong presence online www.t2retail.co.uk and has a wide range of RadioShack products.
In 2001 the Australian stores were sold to Dick Smith Electronics (DSE), a subsidiary of Woolworths Limited. As of 2010 all Tandy stores in Australia have been closed or re-badged as Dick Smith Electronics.
In Canada, the InterTAN stores were sold to rival Circuit City Inc. At that time, the stores were branded as RadioShack, however, because Circuit City lost the naming rights, all RadioShacks were re-branded as "The Source by Circuit City" (now called just The Source.) Some have closed.
In 1985, Tandy acquired two chains, McDuff Electronics and VideoConcepts. Most of these stores were closed as part of a 1994 restructuring plan, with 33 converted to RadioShack or Computer City Express stores.[5] Remaining McDuff stores were closed in 1996.[6]
The Edge in Electronics, a now-defunct chain of boutique stores geared toward mall customers interested in fashionable personal and portable name brand electronics, debuted in 1990 and had 16 stores as of December 1993. One of the last stores open closed its doors in San Antonio TX in 2001.
The Incredible Universe concept was Tandy's attempt to compete with other electronics giants such as Best Buy and Circuit City; the first two stores, located in Arlington, Texas and Wilsonville, Oregon, opened in 1992. Each Incredible Universe store stocked more than 85,000 items, and the stores' sales personnel did not work on commission. Sales were below average compared to Tandy's profitable RadioShack line, and by late 1996, the company had decided to sell or close all 17 Incredible Universe stores.[7] Many Incredible Universe stores were acquired by Fry's Electronics.
Computer City was a supercenter concept featuring name-brand computers, software and related products; by the end of 1993, Tandy had 40 locations, including three in Europe. The Computer City stores were later sold to CompUSA.
In 1983, Conroy sold O'Sullivan Industries to Tandy Corporation. In 1994, Tandy Corporation offered O'Sullivan as a public company. In 1999 O'Sullivan was purchased for about $350 million by investment group OSI Acquisition, an affiliate of Brockman, Rosser, Sherrill & Co., L.P. (BRS).
In 1973, Tandy launched a subsidiary company called Coppercraft Guild, which sold solid copper knicknacks and housewares through a network marketing channel. Most notable were the "Franklin Cups" which were based on a design by Benjamin Franklin, sold in packs of six. The products were attractive and well designed, but the product line folded after about five years. Coppercraft Guild items are still popular with collectors on eBay.