Rewind: Who recalls when Hitchin town centre's Tandy ruled the electronic universe
[H1]Hitchin Nub News Rewind:[H1]
We're back with another of our special Rewind series. We plan to include a nostalgia piece every week in our newsletter.
Taking a stroll around our wonderful town centre often sets history against the modern day.
While a stroll around our town's iconic 12th century St Mary's Church is wonderful for the spirits, a short trip across to the down at heel Churchgate is a reminder that not everything in the town centre is beautiful.
However, memories last even, if ugly buildings don't - and as Hitchin Nub News walked around Churchgate the other day, we found ourselves wondering: Whatever happened to Tandy's?
Situated in Hitchin Market, at the back of Biggin Lane, until 1982, when the building was occupied by Electronic Universe.
Incidentally, many of us in the town would have had call to visit the family run Electronic Universe which traded until recently, after the owner retired.
Who recalls Tandy?
Interestingly, the company was founded in 1950 as Tandy Leather Company. After the business bought RadioShack, their company decided to concentrate on electronics.
At the height of its powers, Tandy owned nearly 7,000 RadioShack stores across the Atlantic in the USA as well as more than 2,100 stores across the UK, Europe, Canada and Australia - including their site in little old Hitchin.
Tandy rode the waves to become an integral part of the home computer revolution that was born in the late 1970s and 1980s.
With home computing becoming more accessible families everywhere invested into a computer - with many purchased from Tandy.
No wonder their famed TRS-80 computer sold around 100,000 units, which in turn was overtaken by the TRS-80 Color in the early 1980s. While prices at the time weren't cheap - £500 or £600, which was a hefty whack back then - they did give the general public their first chance of using technology previously only available to industry experts.
The floodgates opened in August 1977, when Tandy launched the original TRS-80, which was one of the first home computer systems. Many were even produced in kit form. The technology featured a Zilog Z80 microprocessor, which was later used in the Sinclair ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum computers.
The company also decided to take on the might of IBM and their own range of IBM PC compatible computers.
With Tandy's 1000 and 2000 models far cheaper to buy than the original IBM, the company's profits soared.
However, the boom wouldn't last forever and with invention of mobile phones and the rise of Apple, Tandy stores were eventually bought by Carphone Warehouse in 1999.
Hitchin's Tandy lasted until 1982, prior to Electronic Universe taking over the building.
But for many of a certain vintage, Tandy was the start of a lifelong fascination with computers and electronics in general.
Some of us, who can ever forget the thrill of a Saturday morning trip to Tandy in the 1980s?
HITCHIN NUB NEWS REWIND SERIES
Rewind: Knickerbocker Glory - When Wimpy ruled the roost in Hitchin
Rewind: The terrible night the Nazi war machine bombed Hitchin
Rewind: The night Bob Marley and The Wailers played in Hitchin
Rewind: Frank Young VC: 'We will remember them' - the story of Hitchin's Victoria Cross
Rewind: On International Women's Day read about courageous Hitchin Suffragette Elizabeth Impey
Rewind: The day the Graf Zeppelin flew over Hitchin Town's Top Field
Rewind The Hitchin Riots: A very Middle Class affair
Rewind: The story of a cannonball from the English Civil War found in Hitchin
Rewind: The Hitchin - Stevenage experiment that led to a Nobel Prize
Rewind: On this day in 1813 Hitchin icon Henry Bessemer was born - find out more
New hitchin Jobs Section Launched!!
Vacancies updated hourly!!
Click here: hitchin jobs
Share:
