I know what you mean about the drought of the 90&#x27;s and 00&#x27;s. I was at math-science high school and in robotics club in 1998-2002, and our team&#x27;s big hardware-related achievement was replacing a burned-out resistor on a Handyboard. By then software (and video games) had already started to eat the whole hobbiest segment.<p>That said, I&#x27;m skeptical that even at the height of the late 1970&#x27;s and 1980&#x27;s there were enough kids doing hardware-related projects to sustain RadioShack at their modern scale. In the very early 1990&#x27;s, I remember my family purchased a Tandy computer and a stereo system at RadioShack. In Virginia, there was really only a couple of places to buy computers: RadioShack, and MicroCenter. 5-6 years later, we ordered our next computer via Dell direct. I think the loss of that business probably had more to do with RadioShack&#x27;s demise than any change in the number of electronics hobbyists.