But Radio Shack was also a pioneer in intrusive information gathering. They would always ask for your name and address at check-out, often practically insisting they couldn't complete the sale without it. I usually gave them "1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC" as my address. I hope Clinton and GWB liked those catalogs!
They had the same virtual console behavior as we see in Linux.
I had a friend who worked in one of the stores, and I scared the daylights out of him by hitting Ctrl-Alt-F4 on his cash register to get a login. After switching back to F1, he learned the scary trick himself. I have no idea why all of the gettys were enabled in /etc/inittab.
Edit: I had no idea about Pier 1 (rest in peace), the 1959 proxy battle for the family takeover, Tandy's sale of Pier 1 in 1966, Tandy's purchase of a controlling interest in the failing Radio Shack for $300k, Tandy's abrasive management style, or his early demise at 60 from a heart attack.
Peir 1 folded just as we entered the COVID pandemic.
Tandy had a Xenix license from Microsoft and shipped a version on their TRS-80 Model 16 and Tandy 6000 machines (both of which were Motorola 68000-based). It would be interesting to know how much of their own stuff they used internally. I have a recollection of a (potentially apocryphal) story the TRS-80 Model 1 had a "fallback" use as an in-store management computer if they failed to sell.
https://www.eetimes.com/sco-provides-free-unix-system-licens...
From memory, the two serial ports could run classic getty processes.
Here's hoping for the power of Hacker News.
Unfortunately, anyone who managed or worked on a curses app that relayed store sales data to a corporate database would need an exceptional memory in their retirement.
I worked there in the 80s. Early 80s was paper. Late 80s was terminal. Typing an R in the first name field bypassed this obligation IIRC.
Reason RS was so insistent is the company originally started via mail order and wanted this revenue stream to not dwindle....although it obviously did by the 80s.
PS: There's a business who still has their Tandy Leather sign out front in my city.
I've not been very sympathetic to the demise of bricks & mortar retail since then.
i just learned there are about 100 Tandy Leather stores out there if you want to pay tribute