Tandy, Radio-Shack catalogues and history

[Paul Stenning]

I will be trying to scan the glued one from Andy on my book scanner which is one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/Plustek-Opt.../dp/B005AHBGZ6 (but used with VueScan not the awful supplied software).

With this scanner the catalogue only needs to be opened to 90 degrees but it does lose a few millimetres from the bound edge. Looking at Andy's catalogue I don't think it will be a problem for that one but it may be for others.

Hopefully this will be the solution for glued ones. It worked OK for glued BVWS bulletins.

Depending on resolution it's around 15 seconds per page plus a few seconds plus to reposition. I set the scan area in the software which reduces the post-editing a bit.

[Paul Stenning]

Originally Posted by Superscope

Check out Page 81, I forgot to trim that Page.

Fixed and re-uploaded.

[Nickthedentist]

Originally Posted by Superscope

Yep, Tandy in Wimbledon Broadway was my regular Saturday Afternoon excursion.

As you say, happy Days.



Ian

Me too, until I discovered Servio a bit further down

Please do keep the scans coming everyone. I have a feeling I have a mid-1990s one somewhere, but numerous house moves resulted in some paperwork being culled so I don't want to promise too much.

[Paul Stenning]

Originally Posted by radioman

Hello everyone,

Although I've sent one of my 'glued' catalogues to Paul, I have spent the last three days scanning my 1992/93 Parts & Accessories one.
This is an A4 sized catalogue and although it has 36 pages in total, I've only just managed to produce a PDF of it.
The problem is the size of the file - it's 162Mb !
I'm amazed that Superscope managed to get his scan down to the size he did.
I don't have any fancy PDF creation software.... I used PDF-XChange Lite which is a 'Printer' type of creator.
I followed the advice above ; i.e. 300DPI scan resolution - I also reduced the number of colours to 256 as this made no visible difference but helped with file size for each page.
Not sure what else I can do as each page was still around 5,000 kb before I put them into a LibreOffice Draw file so they were in the correct order before 'printing'.

Any suggestions ?

Andy

Received, PDF created and uploaded - 13MB.

The odd solution was to convert the scans from PNG to TIFF then import into the PDF software. As TIFF it recompressed them sensibly whereas as PNG it imported without compression, hence the huge file.

There is probably a setting I've missed somewhere, but that method worked. I have a batch image converter/resizer program (FastStone Photo Resizer) which quickly handled the TIFF conversion.

This may be worth noting with other PDF creation software though. It's easier to try one page first and see how the file sizes compare.

[TonyDuell]

'Superscope' sent me a PM earlier reminding me to check my pile of duplicates...

I have the following UK Tandy catalogues 'spare' :

1979-1980
1982-1983
1983-1984
1984-1985
1985-1986
1988-1989

1981-1982 TRS-80 computer catalogue.

I do not have the time to scan them myself, but if anyone wants them to add to this project, I am happy to pass them on (free of charge).

I can post them (at my expense, but at your risk!).

I can meet up with somebody and hand them over. I am in SE London, so I can get to anywhere in the TFL zone. I also visit other places in the SE from time to time.

You can collect them from me here.

[Paul Stenning]

I can probably scan any with glued spines (I'll confirm once I have tested with the one Andy sent me, probably this weekend). Hopefully other people can take on the rest.

Obviously if your 1982/83 is the same as the one we already have then that won't be needed.

https://www.vintage-radio.info/tandy

[Superscope]

Hi Tony,

I'm not currently set up for scanning the Bound Editions, but I'm happy to
take on any or all of the Stapled versions.

I could take them all, but the Bound ones won't be done quickly, but might
be useful as a test case.



Ian

[radioman]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for sorting out my catalogue scans so quickly !
I'm new at making PDF's which was probably the problem.... it looks like you only get one chance to compress images.
OK about converting to TIFF's - I had my suspicions about the PNG files I'd created... it's still a learning experience for me.

Andy

[Richard_FM]

Interesting to flick through.

Occasionally I would visit the branch in Stockport on Princes Street.

[TonyDuell]

Originally Posted by Superscope

Hi Tony,

I'm not currently set up for scanning the Bound Editions, but I'm happy to
take on any or all of the Stapled versions.

I could take them all, but the Bound ones won't be done quickly, but might
be useful as a test case.



Ian

I would much rather send the whole lot to one person and let them sort it out

I'll wait a bit in case somebody nearer can take them, if not I'll parcel them up and post them to you.

[Paul Stenning]

I have just added the 1991-92 catalogue to the website.

https://www.vintage-radio.info/tandy

This is a glued spine one, loaned by radioman and scanned by me on my book scanner. Even with that it was difficult to get the inner edges so it was just laid as flat as possible without causing damage, which means some edges are darker and there is some page wrinkling. However it should all be readable and is the best I could do without damaging the catalogue.

This was scanned at 200 DPI to keep the file size reasonable (it has come in at 49.6 MB for 136 pages) and have had no further editing etc. This is plenty clear enough for on-screen viewing but probably not so good for printing.

Scanning and PDF generation took around 90 minutes.

I will keep the scans for now in case I or someone else feels inclined to tidy them up.

I am happy to do other glued spine ones to this standard.

Unrelated to Tandy, I have also added an interesting 6 page Boots Radios leaflet from 1977/78 to the leaflets section. Kindly supplied and scanned by radioman.

https://www.vintage-radio.info/leaflets

[Superscope]

That has turned out surprisingly well.
I thought the Edges where the Page cannot lie completely flat would be a lot worse than that.

Perfectly acceptable I would say.

Not sure I could get my Scanning down to 90 Minutes!



Ian

[Paul Stenning]

Fast scanners help - 10 seconds for an A4 page at up to 300 DPI. With easy documents, 4 pages per minute is achievable. This one took longer because I had to reposition it a few times for some of the pages.

Non-flat parts also vary with different scanners. The book scanner I used for this handles that much better than my usual Canon flatbed, but the Canon is a bit faster, has no warm-up time because it's LED, and gives sharper images.

[hamid_1]

Excellent work, all of you! Keep those catalogue scans coming! I'm looking forward to seeing the late 70s - early 80s Tandy catalogues again. There was one I remember that had American CB radios in it, but no prices, just the words "Not available in United Kingdom" because of course they were illegal here at the time. I also recall Tandy catalogues with landline telephones that were prohibited to connect to the UK network, yet it was not illegal to sell them.

Only one small mistake in the latest addition, the 1991-92 catalogue: page 128 appears upside-down.

I certainly have some fond memories of Tandy. I became a member of their 'Battery Club' which entitled you to one free battery every month, just for visiting the store - no purchase necessary. It was a handy source of 9v transistor radio batteries! And when you bought something, the sales staff usually took your name and address. Then a few weeks later, some special offer catalogues would arrive in the post. These usually featured some new products, as well as some about to be discontinued items at a much-reduced price. They also offered the strangely-named "Rain Check" if a special-offer item was temporarily out of stock, you could buy a voucher for the item at the advertised price. When it was back in stock, you exchanged the "Rain Check" voucher for the item. Or you could get a refund if they were unable to supply it.

Tandy had a motto "We service what we sell". They had a central spare parts department in the West Midlands. Back in the 80s I ordered a replacement backlight for a pocket LCD TV I had bought secondhand. Now try getting spare parts for a modern LCD TV from the shop that sold it.

Tandy weren't always good, though. They were often quite expensive for some items. Quality was average. In the end they mostly sold toys and mobile phones, at which point the Carphone Warehouse bought the stores in 1999 and rebranded them.

[Paul Stenning]

Page 128 now corrected - radioman mentioned it in his PM.

[hamid_1]

Thanks for fixing it so quickly. I've re-downloaded the catalogue and it's correct now. Looking forward to seeing some more catalogues

[TonyDuell]

Originally Posted by hamid_1

Tandy had a motto "We service what we sell". They had a central spare parts department in the West Midlands. Back in the 80s I ordered a replacement backlight for a pocket LCD TV I had bought secondhand. Now try getting spare parts for a modern LCD TV from the shop that sold it.

You could also order the service manual for just about anything they sold, including things they simply re-badged.

Tandy sold various pocket computers over the years, these were re-badged Sharp and Casio machines, sometimes with very minor modfication. In my experience it was hard to get the circuit diagrams for these from Sharp, and impossible from Casio, but you could just walk into a Tandy shop, say you wanted to order a service manual for said machine and it would arrive about a week later.

For their larger computers they often had the technical manual for sale in their shops. I remember buying quite a few of them for interest.

[Nickthedentist]

Yes, I managed to get a manual for the very popular BT Freeway cordless phone from InterTan. The OEM was Uniden but because Tandy had also rebranded it, they were willing to supply data, which of course, BT wasn’t